What will happen at the UIA World Congress of Architecture?

BarcelonaThe 1996 congress of the International Union of Architects (UIA) in Barcelona left the memorable image of Plaça dels Àngels transformed into a grand stage to welcome a string of star architects including Jacques Herzog, Norman Foster, Peter Eisenman (who wore a Barça jersey) and Daniel Liebeskind. Thirty years later, this Sunday Barcelona will become the first city to host the congress twice. In these three decades, the sector has changed profoundly: at the time, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, an emblem of iconic architecture, was still a year away from its inauguration; today, architects are fully involved in the great social and environmental challenges.

Under the name Becoming. Architectures for a planet in transition, the congress will address the great challenges of today's world until Thursday, July 2nd, in some forty plenary sessions and debates involving more than 250 international speakers. The total expected audience is 10,000 professionals from over 130 countries. The congress is organized by the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) and the Superior Council of Colleges of Architects of Spain, and this edition is unique in that, for the first time, the curators were chosen through a competition, the winners of which were Pau Sarquella, Carmen Torres, Pau Bajet, Mariona Benedito, Maria Giramé and Tomeu Ramis.

The bulk of the program will be held at the Barcelona International Convention Centre (CCIB), while the Tres Xemeneies in Sant Adrià de Besòs will be the venue for this Sunday's opening ceremony, an open-air debate series, and the main central exhibition. On the other hand, the Sagrada Família, coinciding with Gaudí Year, will host the congress awards ceremony on Wednesday, July 1st, in the evening.

Among the participants are international figures such as Smiljan Radic, Lacaton & Vassal, and Shigeru Ban, all Pritzker Prize winners, the Nobel Prize of architects. Also participating will be philosophers like Timothy Morton, economists like Mariana Mazzucato and Ann Pettifor, artists like Lara Almarcegui, filmmakers like Beka & Lemoine, and engineers like Matthias Schuler and Mario Monotti.

In parallel, the DHub hosts the UIA member sections fair and another exhibition, Spanish Architecture: 30 Years in Transition 1996–2026, a chronological journey with 207 works through three lines: territory and urban design, construction, and heritage restoration. Among the selected works are the Barcelona Botanical Garden, by Carlos Ferrater; L'Auditori, by Rafael Moneo; the Juan Aparicio promenade in Torrevieja (Alicante), by Carme Pinós; the bridge pavilion of the 2008 Zaragoza Universal Exposition, by Zaha Hadid, and the CCCB, by Helio Piñón and Albert Viaplana.