Bilbao’s House of the Basque Language wins Council of Europe Museum Prize

The 2025 Council of Europe Museum Prize has gone to Euskararen Etxea (the House of the Basque Language) in Bilbao, Spain.

A small museum in a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city, the House of the Basque Language showcases the challenge of preserving a language, enabling visitors to listen, read and sing in Euskera, the language of the Basque Country in northeastern Spain.

The language has non Indo-European roots and is considered to be the oldest language in Europe.

The museum’s exhibition is presented in four languages, Euskera, Spanish, English and French, with the aim of allowing visitors to trace the similarities and mutual influences shared by the languages.

The museum was selected as the winner by the culture committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The committee's representative for the Museum Prize, Constantinos Efstathiou, said: “The Euskararen Etxea is a grassroots initiative with intergenerational activities to promote the transmission and use of the Basque language.

“It is a ‘big-little museum’, with only three permanent staff members who manage many activities and a network of partners, including the University of Bilbao, and many civil society associations.”

The Council of Europe Museum Prize has been awarded annually since 1977 to a museum judged to have made “a significant contribution to the understanding of European cultural heritage, the promotion of respect for human rights and democracy, bridging cultures, overcoming social and political borders, broadening visitors' knowledge and understanding of contemporary societal issues and exploring ideas of democratic citizenship”.

The prize is part of the European Museum of the Year Awards (Emya). Past winners include the Sybir Memorial Museum in Bialystok, Poland (2024), the Workers Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark (2023) and Nano Nagle Place in Cork, Ireland (2022).