On the 5th of May, the first edition of Model. Festival of Architecture of Barcelona was inaugurated. An event organised jointly by Barcelona City Council and the Architects' Association of Catalonia (COAC) that brings us closer to experimental architecture and helps us to rethink how we want to live together through new city models and new imaginaries.
The meeting is a prelude to a well-deserved announcement of the UIA-Unesco World Architecture Capital of Barcelona 2026. It is an invitation to ask ourselves what this designation means in a diverse and global society, and at a time when the city model must be redefined, redesigned and revised at all scales in order to respond to the multiple systemic crises of our time. For these reasons, the main focus of this first edition is the idea of re-growing.
What conflicts, internal and external, will cities have to face? Will we be able to continue constructing buildings, streets, squares and parks in the same way as we have done in the past? With what materials? With what energy? Adapted to what temperatures, on what scale, for whom? - are some of the main questions that this festival, led by the artistic directors Eva Franch I Gilabert, Beth Galí and the cultural researcher José Luis de Vicente - and joined by the curators Ethel Baraona (Model Books), Álex Giménez (Model Thinking), Nuria Moliner, Eva Serrat and Francesc Pla (Installations) - seeks to investigate.
