The first deputy mayor of Barcelona City Council, Laia Bonetpresented this Thursday the Architecture Weekswhich will be held in Barcelona from May 14 to June 28. Seven weeks of events that seek to bring architecture closer to citizens. The event was held for the first time in the Catalan capital in 2017. Another date is very present on the horizon: Barcelona will be the World Capital of Architecture in 2026.
They will participate in it 73 entities and 12 universities, which will organize 180 activities in that long month and a half. The Architecture Weeks are organized by the city council itself, the Mies van der Rohe Foundation. Five strategic partners and 15 academics appear as collaborators, including the Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya, the FAD, 48h Open House Barcelona, Construmat and the Col·legi d’Arquitectes Tècnics de Barcelona, as well as all the schools Catalan architecture, urban planning, landscape and space design.
The programing
The complete program, which has been presented by the Chief Architect of the council, Maria Buhigas, includes conferences, exhibitions, guided tours and workshops for all citizens. The details of the events can be consulted on the municipal website of the Weeks.
The event will begin on May 14 with the EUmiesAwards Day at the Palau Victòria Eugènia in Montjuïc, a day about the best European architecture. On the 17th there will be a conference at the Escola d’Arquitectura of the International University of Catalonia by the Japanese studio Kengo Kuma. The same day that 48h Open House will present ‘Music for architecture’.
102 schools
The activities are aimed at citizens of all ages, and this includes schoolchildren. A total of 102 schools, 61 from Barcelona and the rest from other locations in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, will participate in the Architecture in the Classrooms program, in which 112 architects will participate in 365 workshops.
Gràcia will host the Architecture Festival on May 25, which will be replicated in the rest of the city’s districts on the weekends included in the Architecture Weeks. Before, on the 21st, an international competition will be called for architecture students to anticipate debates that should take place during the world capital of 2026
Party walls
On May 30, an international competition will be presented for young architects to transform 10 party walls in Barcelona, one for each district, as EL PERIÓDICO reported in March. They will remain as a legacy of the 2026 event.
All of these are, in short, some of the many activities of a proposal that has a thousand legs, from sustainability to creation, including visits to significant spaces in the city and a look at the architecture of the future.
