From World Capital of Architecture to the Uia Congress, the Catalan city is turning 2026 into a city-wide platform spanning public space, reuse, culture and new urban challenges.
Barcelona is a benchmark for world architecture, but not only that. In 2026, the Catalan capital will use its title as World Capital of Architecture to narrate its own urban transformation: from major cultural construction sites to the scale of neighbourhoods, from the reuse of industrial spaces to the quality of public space.
From 19 June to 31 December 2026, the city will officially be the World Capital of Architecture, a title awarded by Unesco and the International Union of Architects ahead of the Uia World Congress of Architects, scheduled from 28 June to 2 July. It will be the second time Barcelona has hosted the Congress, after the 1996 edition. Thirty years later, the chosen theme is “Becoming. Architectures for a Planet in Transition”: a guiding thread that connects ecology, society, materials, culture and the new responsibilities of design.
The programme, developed with 170 local and international organisations, includes more than 1,500 activities spread across the city’s ten districts and throughout Catalonia: exhibitions, guided tours, workshops, round tables, educational activities and artistic performances. Rather than a celebratory agenda, it is a city-wide platform for questioning the role of architecture in the contemporary city. Among the most anticipated events, the Uia Congress will bring around 10,000 participants, more than 200 speakers and professionals from over 130 countries to Barcelona. The programme will be structured around six thematic strands, addressing ongoing transitions from a multidisciplinary perspective: reuse, material technologies, housing policies, public space, geopolitics and legislation, aesthetics and culture.
The Congress, however, will not remain confined to conference rooms. One of its most significant devices will be the Open Forum at Tres Xemeneies, hosted in a temporary 1,500-seat structure overlooking the sea. An industrial landmark will thus become a public arena for debate, in a format that goes beyond the traditional idea of a professional congress and opens itself up to the city, the territory and its citizens. More than 70 urban, metropolitan and territorial routes will make it possible to read Barcelona through its works, neighbourhoods and ongoing transformations. Alongside these, an educational programme with hundreds of school workshops has been designed to bring younger generations closer to architecture, urban space and landscape.
The designation will also leave a physical legacy. At the Casa de l’Arquitectura, in the former headquarters of the publishing house Gustavo Gili, the scale model “Pla de Barcelona 2026–2035” will be permanently displayed: 84 square metres, at a scale of 1:1,500, made up of 1,204 3d-printed pieces assembled like a puzzle. Produced in Pla, a material derived from renewable sources, the model represents the metropolis and its urban belt, from the Llobregat to the Besòs, extending to the city’s 14 kilometres of coastline. It will be updatable over time and integrated with augmented reality devices; a tactile version, developed with Fundación Once, will also make the city legible to blind and partially sighted people.
The formula “10 months, 10 districts, 10 headquarters” translates this ambition into a distributed geography. Each district becomes a focal point of the World Capital, shifting the narrative of architecture away from the monumental centre and towards the ordinary city: neighbourhoods, markets, schools, libraries, public spaces and often overlooked urban frontages. This same direction is reflected in the transformation of ten blank walls into new urban façades, through an international competition for young architects promoted by the City Council and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe.
Among the places that best express this trajectory is Plaça de les Glòries, a historic traffic interchange converted into a new green centrality. The intervention transforms an area long dominated by traffic into a large nine-hectare public space, with 30,000 square metres of greenery and more than one thousand trees. Glòries thus becomes an urban device where sustainable mobility, culture, services, a market, a library, social housing and new collective facilities intersect. The area is also home to Disseny Hub Barcelona, which hosts exhibitions dedicated to design, architecture, fashion, communication and new technologies. In 2026 it will host “Seny i Rauxa”, an exhibition on recent Catalan architecture built around the tension between measure and creative impulse, rigour and intuition.
The same logic can be found in Montjuïc, one of the city’s main areas of transformation in the coming years. The regeneration of the area includes new pedestrian spaces, more greenery, the strengthening of public transport and the renewal of the exhibition district ahead of the centenary of the 1929 International Exposition. Fira de Barcelona will launch a first phase worth €255 million, with new pavilions, a congress centre and an innovation hub. The Mnac – Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya will also be part of this strategy, with an expansion to more than 71,000 square metres.
There are also important changes in the city’s symbolic places. The Rambles will be regenerated to reduce the impact of traffic, expand pedestrian areas, strengthen local commerce and restore civic quality to one of Europe’s most visited promenades. The project, led by the km_Cero team with Lola Domènech, involves an overall investment of €55.6 million. Port Olímpic, a legacy of the 1992 Olympic Games, has instead been reimagined as a hub for nautical activities, the blue economy, gastronomy and public space.
Alongside these major urban spaces, Barcelona 2026 will also enhance the city’s architectural and cultural heritage. Palau Güell will host “Windows to the Future”, an exhibition dedicated to windows in Gaudí’s work. The restoration of the Teatre Principal, entrusted to Batlleiroig, will return one of the city’s oldest theatres to Barcelona. The former Hospital Sant Sever, converted into an exhibition space for the Casacuberta Marsans Collection, adds another piece to a mosaic that brings together history, innovation and everyday life.
The strength of Barcelona 2026 lies in its ability to hold together monumental heritage and the neighbourhood scale. The urban model is not simply an installation, but a tool for analysis. Blank façades are not surfaces to be decorated, but opportunities to improve the city’s diffuse quality. The routes are not merely guided tours, but devices for reading urban transformation. The challenge remains open: Barcelona must continue to confront tourist pressure, housing affordability, the quality of public space and the right to the city. For this reason, the World Capital of Architecture will be credible not only through the number of events it hosts, but through its ability to turn 2026 into an opportunity for urban governance.
Cover image: Barcelona 2026, World Capital of Architecture © Barcelona Turisme
