Architecture's Coming Home: UIA World Congress in Barcelona

When the Union Internationale des Architectes last held its World Congress in Barcelona, the city was a very different place. The Olympic Games had taken place just four years earlier, Richard Meier's MACBA had just opened, and there was hardly any overtourism or gentrification. Grocery stores still existed in the old town, and Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Família was still considered unlikely to ever be completed. The Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB) and the Disseny Hub design museum, two of the three main venues for the 2026 UIA Congress, didn't even exist as a sketch by their architects, Josep Lluís Mateo and MBM Arquitectes. The only building in operation was the Tres Xemeneies (Three Chimneys) power station in the suburb of Sant Adrià de Besòs, which produced fossil fuel-based electricity. It was decommissioned in 2011, but was brought back to life in 2024 for the Manifesta 15 art exhibition. This year, it is the central setting and certainly the biggest architectural attraction of the congress.

The Turbine Hall of the former “Tres Xemeneies” thermal power station in Sant Adrià will be the central venue for the Congress. © Anna Mas

Other highlights of the programme include the presentation of the UIA Architecture Awards at the Sagrada Família and the closing ceremony at Montjuïc Castle. Spread across the entire city, this concept differs significantly from the last UIA World Congress in Copenhagen in 2023, where all programme items took place in the Bella Center convention centre, halfway to the airport. Compared to its predecessor, the organisers in Barcelona have set themselves ambitious goals: around 10,000 interested parties from all over the world are expected to attend the six-day event (28 June to 3 July 2026). This is around a third more than the 6,000 guests Copenhagen welcomed in 2023. 

This year's UIA architecture awards will be presented at the Sagrada Família. © Sagrada Familia

As usual, Barcelona will also hold the honorary title of World Capital of Architecture. This title is awarded by Unesco to the host city of the World Architecture Congress. In this way, the UN subsidiary organisation aims to raise public awareness of the role of architecture and urban planning. The congress itself is organised by the Spanish and Catalan architects' associations and receives funding from the Spanish state, the Catalan regional government and the city of Barcelona. The programme items are selected by a six-member curatorial team, all of whom are graduates of the local architecture faculty and now run their own architecture firms, teaching at universities in Spain and abroad. 

The curatorial and organisational team of the UIA Congress, © Anna Mas

This event promises close integration between research, teaching and practice, as reflected in the programme. An initial list of around 100 speakers and panellists was published in January. This includes many individuals whose work has already been published in Detail: Roger Boltshauser, Tatiana Bilbao, Peris + Toral, Max Núñez, the Belgian practice 51N4E, and Bruther from Paris. Protagonists from Germany, such as Arno Brandlhuber, will also be represented. His office, together with the HouseEurope! initiative, will address European building legislation and its impact on the real estate industry. 

The Disseny Hub design museum, which is located opposite the Torre Agbar will also host numerous panel discussions, workshops and lectures. © Ajuntament de Barcelona

These and other issues will be discussed at the UIA Congress, and work will be carried out in the run-up to the event. “A Wicked Laboratory” is the title of a ten-day workshop for students and recent graduates. Working alongside twelve up-and-coming architectural practices, participants will address some of the most pressing issues facing Barcelona, such as the increasingly unbearable summer heat, mass tourism, and the shortage of affordable housing. The results of their work will be exhibited during the Congress in the former power station. The same applies to the “Research by Design” initiative. Twelve international architecture teams were given a year to work on a project of their own choosing, whether that be urban mining, new feminist forms of living, or adaptable construction methods. It remains to be seen whether the architects will present genuinely new research results or merely an essence of their previous work. 

With 10,000 architects from over 130 countries in attendance, no detail can be overlooked. As part of the UIA Congress, we will honour the winners of the Detail Construction Award. This prize was first awarded last year, when the jury selected the winner from 331 submissions in Munich at the end of January. All six winners will be presented in the Detail anniversary edition in June 2026.