Since its inauguration this spring, Expo 2025 Osaka has captured global attention from multiple perspectives, demonstrating how architecture can function as a laboratory for exploring solutions to pressing challenges. After 55 years, Osaka is once again hosting the World Expo, with each installation organized around the sub-themes Saving Lives, Empowering Lives, and Connecting Lives. These pavilions take forms that express the identity and values of their region through distinctive architectural languages, forming the central axis of their design. Building on this foundation, some installations serve as laboratories for the future society, utilizing technology to enhance experiences both inside and outside the spaces, transforming the visit through light, sound, visuals, and movement as part of the technological innovation showcased at the event.
October will see the opening of Ibraaz, a new cultural space reimagined by Architect-in-Residence Sumayya Vally in central London. The initiative is led by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation and aims to highlight art, culture, and ideas from the Global Majority: communities of African, Asian, Indigenous, and Latin American heritage that together represent most of the world's population. The project seeks to bridge local and global conversations by creating a "world of many worlds" within a single venue: a six-floor, 10,000-square-foot building that has undergone multiple transformations, from synagogue to residence, club, and now cultural center.
Revitalisation of Historic Esna, Egypt. Image Courtesy of Takween ICD
Among the seven winners of this year's 16th Aga Khan Award for Architecture was theRevitalisation of Historic Esna in southern Egypt. Led by the Cairo-based firm Takween, the project was far more than a simple restoration. It was a comprehensive renewal effort that combined deep community engagement with the preservation of both tangible and intangible heritage. By creating thousands of jobs and restoring the historic center, the initiative offered a powerful alternative to demolition. The Aga Khan Trust lauded it as a 'replicable model for sustainable development'.
Al-Saa'a Convent after restoration. Image Courtesy of UNESCO / Abdullah Rashid
From 2014 to 2019, Daesh (ISIS) occupied and controlled territory in Iraq and Syria, including the northern city of Mosul. UNESCO estimates that 80% of Mosul's historic town was destroyed during this period, which led to one of the most ambitious reconstruction campaigns in recent decades: "Revive the Spirit of Mosul." Since 2019, UNESCO has carried out large-scale efforts to rebuild the city's landscapes and monuments, reconstructing three religious and cultural landmarks and 124 heritage houses, along with other buildings located in the Old City. The program was structured around three pillars: restoring significant heritage, promoting the return of cultural life, and strengthening spaces for education. On September 1, 2025, Iraq's Prime Minister inaugurated three major landmarks: the Al-Nouri Mosque complex, Al-Saa'a Convent, and Al-Tahera Church, marking the completion of the restoration project.
Monasticism emerged from a deep impulse to withdraw—a radical pursuit of spirituality and transcendence. The word itself comes from the Greek μόνος (mónos), meaning “alone,” reflecting the ideal of the holy hermit who retreats from the world to dedicate life entirely to the divine. By the late 3rd century, in Egypt and Palestine, the first Christian monks began to follow this path, creating ways of life that would later give rise to a distinct architecture centered on seclusion.
The Mir-i-Arab Madrasa. Image Courtesy of Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation
The inaugural edition of the Bukhara Biennial opened on September 5, 2025, bringing over 70 site-specific commissions by more than 200 participants from 39 countries to the historic core of the Uzbek city. Commissioned by the UzbekistanArt and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF) and Commissioner Gayane Umerova, the Biennial is described as the largest and most diverse cultural event in Central Asia to date. Curated by Diana Campbell under the theme Recipes for Broken Hearts, the ten-week event is staged across a constellation of newly restored sites, including madrassas, caravanserais, and mosques, all part of Bukhara's UNESCOWorld Heritage listing. Beyond an exhibition platform, the biennial is framed as part of a broader master plan, positioning culture as a catalyst for urban transformation and heritage renewal.
Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture has recently unveiled images of a project to transform a historic residence in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, into a "21st-century cultural destination." The proposal envisions a museum dedicated to the ideas and influence of Jadidism, a Muslim reform movement that advocated for the modernization of education across Central Asia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The project was commissioned by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF), established in 2017 to preserve, promote, and nurture the country's heritage, arts, and culture, while integrating them into the global art world and cultural landscape. Scheduled to open to the public in 2027, the museum is part of the ACDF's broader efforts to create landmark cultural institutions that engage audiences worldwide.
In historic Stone Town, the main city in Zanzibar, Tanzania, the story of one cinema building and its imminent restoration is reflective of the city's history and the narrative of cinemas generally. The early twentieth century saw the advent of cinema construction, peaking in mid-century, before declining against competition with multiplexes and home television. While many were demolished or irreparably altered, many also lay abandoned, like time capsules for a bygone era. They are a snapshot of the architecture styles and methods of their time, acting as a reminder of their role in their communities. Restoring and adapting a cinema like the Majestic is a recognition of its heritage and community value.
All materials come from somewhere, embedded in a chain of extraction, supply, production, and disposal that, depending on its scale, leaves more or less significant marks on the environment. In architecture, we usually approach this trajectory through the lens of materials' circularity, considering how they can re-enter production cycles rather than become waste. Yet, broadening our view to unexpected places reveals parallel systems where by-products from one industry become resources for another. This approach has found fertile ground in organic waste transformed into biomaterials, with one of the most recent examples being the work of Fahrenheit Works. Through their installation, "From the Tagus to the Tile", they repurpose oyster shells initially discarded by food systems to create a reinterpretation of Lisbon's iconic tiles.
Near the center of Helsinki, Finland, in the Töölö neighborhood, one can find the Temppeliaukio Church, an unusual-looking Lutheran church nestled between granite rocks. Approaching the square from Fredrikinkatu street, the church appears subtly, a flat dome barely rising above its surrounding landscape. An unassuming entrance, flanked by concrete walls, leads visitors through a dark hallway, and into the light-filled sanctuary carved directly into the bedrock. The exposed rock walls earned it the alternative name “The Church of the Rock.” To contrast the heaviness of the materials, skylights surrounding the dome create a play of light and shadows and a feeling of airiness.
The church is the result of an architectural competition won by the architect brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen in 1961. Their original solution was recognized not only for its creativity but also for the respect it showed to the competition’s goal: “to include the organization plan for the whole Temppeliaukio Square, taking into attention that as great part as possible of the rock outcrop of the square to be preserved.” The winning proposal achieves this by embedding the church inside the rock and placing parish facilities on the edges of the hillock. This article explores the story behind the Temppeliaukio Church both narratively and visually, through the lens of Aleksandra Kostadinovska, a professional photographer from Skopje.
During the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee, held from July 6 to 16, 2025, at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, 26 new properties were inscribed on the World Heritage List. In addition to examining new nominations, the Committee reviewed the conservation and management of existing sites, addressed the impact of climate change on heritage, and approved the extension of two existing sites to create new transboundary natural parks. According to UNESCO, the session placed the work of local communities at the center of safeguarding policies, reinforced efforts to preserve African heritage, and acknowledged the growing recognition of remembrance sites and the protection of humanity's shared prehistory. These 26 properties, located across 26 countries, now benefit from the highest level of international heritage protection.
To recover, revitalize, convert—these actions have become increasingly present in contemporary cities, where architecture takes on the role of stitching together the overlapping layers of time that make up the urban fabric. Faced with this task, architects have explored a range of design strategies. Among them, one material in particular has stood out for how frequently—and effectively—it appears in interventions on historic buildings and contexts: corten steel. With its rusted surface, rich in texture and tone, it seems to offer a compelling answer to the challenging question of how to insert the new into the old. But what makes this material so recurrent in these situations? Is it simply its durability and versatility, or is there something deeper in its visual and symbolic presence?
The Sardarapat Memorial and the architect's original sketch. Image via risraelyan.com/en/, courtesy of Aram Ghanalanyan
In a time when much global architecture can feel disconnected from local identity, the work of Rafayel Israelyan stands out for being rooted in place, culture, and memory. Working in mid-20th-century Armenia, Israelyan created architecture that is more than functional or monumental; it is culturally resilient. His use of traditional Armenian motifs, materials, and symbolic forms gave his designs a second life after the fall of the Soviet Union, when many buildings across post-Soviet states were abandoned or demolished. Armenia, by contrast, preserved many of his works, likely because their design approach not only served a specific moment in time, but also told a larger story. Long before concepts like sustainability or critical regionalism became popular, Israelyan understood that buildings gain meaning and endurance when they reflect the specific identity and characteristics of their place.
The 2025 edition of the European Cultural Centre's (ECC) Time Space Existenceexhibition in Venice is guided by the mandate to "Repair, Regenerate, and Reuse." Aiming to move beyond surface-level solutions and overused terminology, the exhibition showcases a cohort of practitioners who interpret architecture as an active agent of repair. The most compelling works presented in Venice demonstrate that "repair" is a multifaceted practice, operating across material, social, and historical registers. The varied approaches showcase a shift in the role of the architect, from a master builder and designer of physical objects, to that of a mender, able to combine technology, community, and material intelligence to restore narratives and build stronger cultural systems.
The Benedictine Monastery of San Nicolò l’Arena in Catania, Sicily, holds within its stones the echoes of five centuries, shaped by time, varied uses, violent earthquakes, and the blazing force of Mount Etna. Its walls, silent witnesses to history, were molded both by the fire of nature and by human hands. Yet among all the transformations it underwent, none was as profound or poetic as the one led by Italian architect Giancarlo De Carlo, starting in 1980. After 30 years of dedicated work, time required to truly understand such a complex and awe-inspiring site, the former monastic residence was reborn as a university, not by force, but through revelation.
The theorist André Corboz, known for his contributions to the critical reading of territory, proposes that the cities should be understood as a palimpsest. That is, a surface continuously rewritten, where traces of previous layers remain visible even after successive interventions. For him, the city is not a static entity, but an organism in constant transformation, where historical, functional, and symbolic layers overlap. This is why working on restoration or rehabilitation projects for historical buildings is particularly complex, requiring careful thought about the approach to be taken: should extensions and renovations seek complete coherence with the original language, or assert themselves as architectural expressions of their own time?
