04 e 06 novembre 2009

“Opening its doors to over 1,500 visitors is the biggest gathering of the global architectural community – the World Architecture Festival, just a few minutes outside Barcelona city centre at the Centre Convencions International Barcelona (CCIB), starts today from 4th to 6th November 2009.

The festival, now in its second year, celebrates the work, concerns and aspirations of international architects.

The curators have masterminded the exhibition and seminar programme to respond to the common festival umbrella theme – Less Does More, which in reflection of the current global economic climate will examine the challenges facing architects to produce more value for less cost.

Two further themes featured at the festival include ‘The Cities’, which explores the important and interesting cities from around the world, looking at their governance, economies and the contributions architects make to them. These seminars will be at the forefront of explaining relationships between policies, economic conditions and design and exploring the most pressing issues facing urban development. The other ‘Barcelona Now’ discusses how Barcelona continues to make itself a world leader in new architecture and urban design and what is in the future pipeline. Examination of ongoing sites/projects as well as new work by local, national and international architects.

Running alongside the main seminars is the world’s largest architectural awards programme – the World Architecture Festival Awards. Unlike other award schemes the WAF Awards give access to something more often reserved for a select few – to see shortlisted architects present their schemes live to international judging panels, including the likes of Sir Peter Cook, Kengo Kuma, Renato Benedetti and Will Alsop and delegates, as they compete for the ultimate accolade of World Building of the Year 2009.

Rafael Viñoly is chair of the ‘super-jury’ which will choose the winner from 15 finalists announced at a glittering awards ceremony at the end of the festival on Friday 6th November.

In addition to the 15 categories in the World Building of the Year, for buildings completed in the last year, this year’s Awards feature three new sections – Interiors and Fit-Out, Structural Design and Future Projects, which celebrates excellence in design for projects still on the drawing board.

Some of the world’s leading architects and members of the super-jury will be presenting keynote sessions during the festival including Farshid Moussavi, who will be discussing her new book, 'The Function of Form'; while Raphael Rafael Viñoly, will be talking about architecture in the context of his worldwide work. The final keynote on Friday 6th November will be a panel discussion on the forthcoming Copenhagen climate 'summit', and how architects can better respond to challenges which are already with us.

Yet again Barcelona’s design energy and World Architecture Festival helps to showcase international architectural excellence to the world” (CS dell’evento).