The 15th São Paulo International Architecture Biennial (BIAsp), scheduled to take place in September and October 2027, announced architects Gabriela de Matos and Pedro Rossi as the event's chief curators. Following the previous edition on the theme Extremes: Architectures for a Hot World, the duo is expected to bring critical perspectives on architecture, culture, and the city to bear on the theme Architecture, Culture, and Sovereignty. Their role is to direct the conceptual development of the Biennial, assemble a curatorial team, and run a public call for co-curators.
The São Paulo International Architecture Biennial is a consolidated Latin American platform for public debate on architecture, urbanism, and culture. Organized by the Institute of Architects of Brazil – São Paulo Chapter (IABsp), a voluntary membership organization present in every state of the country, it held its first edition in 1973, amid the wave of dictatorships on the continent. Over the course of fourteen editions, it has brought together different generations of architects, urban planners, researchers, students, and public officials, tracking the transformations of architecture and cities and affirming architecture as a field of cultural production and public debate.
Through exhibitions, forums, and debates held in São Paulo, the upcoming edition of the Biennial proposes to discuss architecture grounded in the realities of Brazil. Urban inequality, the climate emergency, the right to the city, and the plurality of knowledge systems are expected to be central to the international debate. Taking the country's material reality as a starting point, the Biennial aims to affirm Brazil as a site of critical production on architecture, linking established references to trajectories, practices, and experiences that have historically been given little visibility.
Invited by the Institute of Architects of Brazil, architects and urban planners Gabriela de Matos and Pedro Rossi bring perspectives on exclusion, lack of representation, and territorial injustice to their practice and research. Gabriela de Matos has conducted studies on architecture produced in Africa and its diaspora, with a focus on Brazil, and on the relationships between race, territory, and the city. Pedro Rossi has developed a trajectory devoted to urban policy, housing, and the role of architecture in building more just and democratic cities.
Both have built distinguished academic and professional careers, earning recognition and awards along the way. Gabriela de Matos served as co-president of IABsp between 2020 and 2022, was co-curator of the Brazil Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023, awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. She also founded the Projeto Arquitetas Negras [Black Women Architects Project] and directs the Instituto Cambará and Estúdio Gabriela de Matos. Pedro Rossi holds a master's degree from ETSAB/UPC in Barcelona and a doctorate from FAUUSP, works as a researcher at INCT Produção da Casa e da Cidade/LABHAB-FAUUSP, and is a member of IABsp's Higher Council. They are both professors at Escola da Cidade.
In other news about roles and awards, Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura received the 2026 UIA Gold Medal, the highest distinction awarded by the International Union of Architects, during a ceremony held at the Basílica de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona. The Graham Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2026 Grants to Individuals program, awarding 54 projects that investigate architecture through exhibitions, films, publications, and research initiatives. Earlier in June, the Diriyah Biennale Foundation revealed the four architecture studios shortlisted for the 2027 AlMusalla Prize, an international competition that commissions the design of a musalla, a space for prayer and contemplation, for the third edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale.
