Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

A few weeks before discovering which team has won the curatorial competition for the UIA-UNESCO World Congress to be held in Barcelona in 2026, the Council of the International Union of Architects (UIA) paid a visit to the COAC today for a meeting to review current activities and to discuss the agenda for the coming months.

Participating in the meeting on behalf of the UIA were: the chair, Regina Gonthier; the secretary general, Rui Leao; vice-presidents Teresa Táboas and Nivaldo d’Andrade, and the treasurer Seif Alnaga; the chair of the CSCAE, Marta Vall-llossera; COAC dean Guillem Costa Calsamiglia; director general of territorial planning, urban planning and architecture Agustí Serra; Barcelona City Council’s Chief Architect María Buhigas; manager of the CSCAE Daniel Monfort, and secretary of the UIABCN26 working group Roger Subirà.

The visit served to discuss the unprecedented competition being held to select the curator, which will be announced in December, as well as the possible venues the organisation and the congress itself in the city.

By hosting the UIA-UNESCO World Congress in 2026, Barcelona will become the first city to have hosted this major event twice. In 1996, the city was the venue for the 19th World Congress, and now, three decades later, the aim is to repeat the success of that event, strengthening the role of the city itself, and of Catalonia and Spain as centres of production and thought in contemporary architecture and urban design.