The Prix Versailles has unveiled its list of the “world’s most beautiful arenas” for 2026. The seven arena and stadium designs “have proved to be true, contemporary reflections of the geographic areas where they are located,” according to Prix Versailles Secretary General Jérôme Gouadain, adding: “Thanks to the well-established expertise of firms which specialize in this type of infrastructure, each one embodies the idea that excellence is always the fruit of experience, and that creativity always stems from vitality.”

In December, three projects from the list will be given additional titles of a World Title – Prix Versailles, Interior, or Exterior. The unveiling of the arenas shortlist comes shortly after the organization chose its shortlist for stations, universities, commercial stores, restaurants, hotels, airports, and museums. 

Below, we have published the seven projects comprising the World's Most Beautiful Arenas list 2026. You can compare the projects with those of previous years by following our ongoing coverage of the series here.

Coronation Park Centre in Edmonton, Canada, by hmca, Dub Architects, and FaulknerBrowns

For this week's curated picks of architecture and design competitions listed on Bustler, we are featuring four calls seeking research proposals that explore how design plays a transformative role in Africa and its diaspora; ideas for the creation, improvement, or preservation of inclusive public spaces in New York City; designs for a new academic wing at one of the oldest educational institutions in Sofia, Bulgaria; and innovative concepts that redefine skyscraper design.

To discover the complete directory of newly listed competitions, click here.

French practice Atelier Julien Boidot has been announced as the winner of the AR Emerging Awards 2026. The firm was chosen from a shortlist of ten, which we reported on earlier this week. 

Awarding the accolade, the jury described Atelier Julien Boidot as “a savvy model for practice,” with a team including a quantity surveyor, engineer and interior designer in-house. Focusing on educational design, the work of Atelier Julien Boidot has increased urgency at a time when the quality of schools in France is under scrutiny. “The architecture possesses a confidence and requires no explanation,” the judges added.

The 2026 RIBA Stirling Prize, the UK’s highest architectural honor, has been awarded to a residential development in South London by Mary Duggan Architects and RUFF Architects. Lion Green Road comprises 157 homes distributed across five residential blocks, combining privately owned and socially rented housing.

Vancouver is recognized around the world for its unique balance between urban density, livability, and nature. Framed by mountains and the Pacific coastline, the city has developed a distinct approach to city-building that prioritizes public space, sustainability, and quality of life. As Vancouver continues to evolve, new opportunities are emerging to reimagine how architecture can contribute to the future character of its downtown.

As population growth, housing demand, economic development, and investment in public transit continue to reshape cities globally, questions surrounding height and density have become increasingly important. While taller buildings can help accommodate growth and create new opportunities for public benefit, they also raise important considerations about urban identity, environmental performance, public space, and the everyday experience of city life. Vancouver is now exploring how building higher can strengthen the qualities that make the city exceptional.

The Vancouver Tall Challenge: Building Higher Downtown is organized by Buildner in collaboration with the City of Vancouver and the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA). The competition forms part of a broader conversation about the future of tall buildings in Vancouver and seeks to engage the international design community in exploring new ideas for urban growth, architectural excellence, and public value.

The competition invites architects, designers, planners, landscape architects, and creative thinkers to imagine innovative approaches to tall buildings within Vancouver’s downtown core. Participants are challenged to explore how architecture can contribute to a more vibrant, sustainable, inclusive, and resilient city while helping define what a truly made-for-Vancouver approach to building higher could look like. 

PRIZES

3 winning proposals, 2 special award recipients and 6 honourable mentions will be selected. Buildner will award a total of $15,000 CAD in prize money to competition winners as follows:

1st Prize - $7,000 CAD
2nd Prize - $4,000 CAD
3rd Prize - $2,000 CAD
+ 6 honourable mentions

Buildner Student Award - $1,000 CAD
Buildner Sustainability Award - $1,000 CAD

The AIA and ACSA have announced the winners of the 2026 Design for Aging Competition. Titled An Intergenerational Union: A Campus-Integrated Hub for Lifelong Learning and Active Aging Competition, the competition challenged students to design university-affiliated residences that foster community between seniors and young adults.

Seven designs were honored, namely first, second, and third place winners and four honorable mentions. According to the organizers, the winning projects “integrate wellness, biophilic designs, and sustainable strategies to cultivate intergenerational connection, inclusion, and wellbeing.”

The winning schemes are as follows:

1st Place: Common Ground: An Intergenerational Living Campus for Lifelong Learning and Active Aging

The Graham Foundation has announced the winners of its 2026 Carter Manny Awards. The initiative, running for 30 years, is “dedicated to architectural scholarship by recognizing emerging scholars whose work promises to challenge and reshape contemporary discourse and impact the field at large.”

The 2026 Carter Manny Writing Award, accompanied by a $25,000 grant, was awarded to Yeo-Jin (Katerina) Bong of the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Bong’s dissertation, “Tracing Layers: Building Beneath the Surface in the Italian Apennines, 1527–1650,” investigates how early modern geo-architects in the Papal States transformed the challenges of unstable terrain—collapsing foundations, shifting rivers, and seismic soils—into a new empirical and representational practice that treated the ground itself as a site of design. 

The Architectural Review has unveiled the 2026 shortlist for its annual AR Emerging awards. The ten selected firms span China, France, Korea, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK.

Launched in 1999, the awards seek to recognize early-career designers with promising portfolios. Previous winners have included Frida Escobedo, Thomas Heatherwick, and Boonserm Premthada.

“The 2026 shortlist includes architects who are experimenting with rammed earth, learning from local building types, and creating urgently needed third places,” organizers said, adding that the shortlist “includes architects who are creating generous public spaces, transforming existing buildings, and experimenting with low-carbon materials.”

The shortlisted firms are as follows:

A-A Collective

Buildner’s Unbuilt Award 2027, celebrating its fourth edition, honors the boundless creativity and visionary spirit of architecture. The competition shines a spotlight on the significance of unrealized designs, celebrating bold ideas and imaginative visions that, even without being built, capture the essence of innovation and exploration. It offers a global stage for architects and designers to showcase their most daring concepts, challenge conventional thinking, and inspire the future of the built environment.

Participants are invited to submit their work, offering unrestricted freedom to highlight their creativity and vision. Whether it's designs still on paper, detailed plans awaiting realization, or conceptual ideas seeking acknowledgment, all forms of unbuilt projects are welcome.

Submissions are categorized as small, medium, or large, so every project gets the recognition it deserves. Buildner aims to showcase the incredible potential of these unbuilt designs, applauding the imagination and commitment of architects and designers striving for innovation and excellence.

The Buildner Unbuilt Award 2027 offers life-changing prizes, including a €50,000 prize fund shared across three categories, a dedicated chapter in the annual Unbuilt Book, and the prestigious Continuum Trophy, designed by renowned designer Germans Ermičs. Participants have the opportunity to showcase their creativity on a global stage and gain recognition for visionary ideas that shape the future of architecture.

PRIZE FUND

Buildner will recognize one winner in each of the three scale-based categories and award five honorable mentions in each category as well. A student winner will also be chosen for each category. Additionally, there will be a special award for the best presentation. All winners and honorable mentions will be featured in a printed book to showcase their innovative work.

50,000 € + Your Chapter in The Book

For detailed information about scale-based categories, the awarding of five honorable mentions in each category, and special award, please refer to the homepage.

Bustler's curated picks of new architecture and design competitions this week feature four calls seeking creative design concepts for a fixed & mobile pavilion in Busan, South Korea; exceptional work from LGBTQIA+ architects across all career stages; the latest architectural designs by New York City firms; and standout unbuilt projects.

To discover the complete directory of newly listed competitions, click here.

The KCMA Design Awards provide architects with an opportunity to showcase projects that combine architectural vision, functionality, innovation and quality cabinetry while demonstrating how cabinetry integrates with the overall architectural design.

Building on tremendous growth, the 2026 KCMA Design Awards received 101 submissions—more than double the number received the previous year. The record participation reflects growing interest in the competition and brings even greater attention to the talented professionals shaping today’s kitchen environments.

“The KCMA Design Awards are about more than just great kitchens,” said Betsy Natz, CEO of KCMA. “They’re a celebration of design leadership, innovation, and the power of collaboration across our industry. We are proud to recognize the individuals and firms elevating cabinet design to new levels of beauty, functionality, and performance.”

What Makes a Winning Design?

Eligible projects will be evaluated by a panel of design professionals using seven key criteria:

Innovation • Aesthetics • Functionality • Durability • Utility • Emotional Quotient (EQ) • Overall Rating

Projects incorporating KCMA Quality Certified cabinets or cabinetry from manufacturers participating in the KCMA Environmental Stewardship Program (ESP) may also receive bonus consideration.

 Put Your Work in the Spotlight

The KCMA Design Awards offer architects more than the opportunity to win an award—they provide a platform to showcase exceptional work to the architectural design and building industries.

In addition to cash awards for top projects, the program has historically provided participants with professional exposure through KCMA and leading industry media.

KCMA further recognizes the design community through its LOOK BOOK, a print and digital publication showcasing submitted projects—not just the award winners. The LOOK BOOK gives participating professionals and firms another opportunity to share their architectural vision, design expertise and completed projects with a broader industry audience.

Important Dates — Tentative

KCMA is currently planning the following schedule for the 2027 Design Awards program:

• Design Submission Period: October 12, 2026 – December 18, 2026
• Judging Begins: February 15, 2027

Dates are tentative and subject to change. Additional competition details, eligibility requirements, award information and submission guidelines will be announced by KCMA.

Architects interested in participating are encouraged to start identifying their strongest kitchen projects and gathering professional photography and project information in preparation for the submission period.

Your next outstanding kitchen project deserves to be seen.

Complete information about the 2027 KCMA^® Design Awards, including the official Rules & Regulations, How to Submit, and more, is available at www.kcmadesignawards.com.

Hosted on riba.org, the exhibition will showcase selected projects to an international audience through our digital channels. Selected projects may also feature in materials supporting our activities in India in January 2027.

The initiative forms part of our ongoing engagement with our international membership and the wider architectural community. In January 2027, President Chris Williamson will visit Mumbai and Bengaluru alongside RIBA Chief Executive Dr Valerie Vaughan-Dick MBE, with networking receptions and other opportunities planned to connect with members in both cities.

The exhibition offers architects an opportunity to share their work, celebrate the diversity of contemporary architecture in India and connect with a wider international audience.

Connecting RIBA’s international community

India is part of the Asia and Australasia region, which supports a community of around 2,500 professionals. Through this international network, we provide opportunities for members to build professional connections, access knowledge and resources, and participate in activities that support architecture and the wider profession.

Sharing the work of architects practising in India is an important part of this engagement. The exhibition will bring together projects from across the country, creating an opportunity to celebrate the people, practices, and ideas contributing to its built environment.

From individual buildings to larger-scale developments, architecture responds to the places, communities, and contexts in which it is created. The exhibition will offer a platform for members to share their work and demonstrate the range of architectural projects being delivered in India today.

Who can apply?

The open call is open to RIBA Chartered Members and International Affiliate Members, including those with membership applications pending. Projects must be completed and located in India.

To submit a project for consideration, applicants should provide:

• three high-resolution images in JPEG or PNG format, which may include photographs, architectural drawings, or renderings.
• a project description of 150 to 200 words.
• the project location.
• photographer and copyright credits.
• confirmation that they have permission to share all submitted materials

Architects who are not currently RIBA members will need to apply for International Affiliate Membership to participate. Once the membership application has been submitted, you can submit your project for consideration.

You can submit your project even if you previously entered it for the International Awards.

How to submit your project

Submit your project by 15 November 2026 here.

We look forward to celebrating the work of architects in India and sharing their projects with audiences around the world.

To create a tea house experience in Cappadocia that connects visitors to the landscape through relaxation, gastronomy, and contemplation. Cappadocia Oasis is envisioned as a small, contemporary retreat integrated into the Red Valley landscape, where architecture, nature, and the visitor experience form a continuous journey. The proposal must include a main tea house featuring dining service areas, spaces for rest and contemplation, courtyards and gardens, and a terrace facing the landscape.

The Site

The project site is located on a high plateau within the Red Valley landscape in Göreme, Turkey. This positioning establishes a direct connection with the rock formations and the valley skyline, making it the ideal location for the Tea House’s core experience.

Schedule

12 october | Start of inscriptions 

31 october | End of the first stage of registration 

16 november | Ad members of the Evaluation Committee 

21 november | End of consultation period 

22 november | Second stage of registration ends 

07 december | End of registration period 

22 december | Deadline for submission of proposals 

11 january | Judgment of the Evaluation Committee 

13 january | Dissemination of results 

13 january | Awards

PRIZES

1º PRIZE US $ 9,000 + Exhibition and diffusion in the main architecture sites worldwide. + Virtual booklet of the best proposals.

3 HONORABLE MENTIONS + Exhibition and diffusion in the main architecture sites worldwide. + Virtual booklet of the best proposals

RATES

Variable rates according to scheduled date. Check the registration periods and complete RULES at: http://www.worldarchitecturecompetitions.com

For the inaugural prize, we’ve partnered with the Pan-African Biennale, the first continental biennale dedicated to architecture and the built environment. Alongside our team, the biennale’s founding curator Omar Degan has helped articulate its themes and supports the mentorship of the winning designers. Two Africa-based winners were selected from participants in the 2026 Pan-African Biennale, and a third US-based winner will be chosen through an open call, with applications due Sunday, November 22.

Winners are selected by a committee including Nora Akawi, Assistant Professor, The Cooper Union; Ifeoma Ebo, Founding Principal, Creative Urban Alchemy; Mark Gardner, Principal, Jaklitch / Gardner Architects; Kabage Karanja, Co-Founder, Cave_bureau; and Mphethi Morojele, Managing Director, MMA Design Studio.

Each winner receives a $35,000 travel fellowship to research how design plays a transformative role in Africa and its diaspora — places once held to the periphery of architectural discourse, but are now increasingly appreciated as centers of innovation in sustainability, resiliency, and cultural preservation. They’ll conduct impactful field research, evolve their work to the next phase of development, and meaningfully engage communities navigating histories of displacement and exclusion in a spirit of cross-cultural collaboration and exchange. Following their field research, they’ll collaborate to present their learnings at Van Alen Institute in Fall 2027 and the second Pan-African Biennale in 2028.

Proposals should:

• Require international travel to connect with experts and opportunities for impactful field research
• Move an important new concept or existing projects to the next phase of development
• Meaningfully engage communities impacted by historical and ongoing harm in a spirit of cross-cultural collaboration and exchange
• Help ideas scale up to achieve greater impact or connect with a wider audience

Proposals should also address one or more of five critical themes in reparative and regenerative urbanism:

• Land use, planning, and regenerative development: How can new models of land use, planning and development repair blighted neighborhoods and promote broad-based prosperity?
• Materials, making, and resilient design: How the physical building blocks of cities can support climate action, circular economies, and waste reduction
• Data, algorithms, and the public realm: How digital infrastructures reshape public spaces, civic life, and spatial perception
• Interdependent ecosystems: How urban design supports environmental repair, ecological stewardship and resilience
• Cultural hybridity: How can we recenter local, indigenous and underrepresented knowledge?

Learn more and apply: https://www.vanalen.org/project/re-paris-prize

About Van Alen Institute

Van Alen Institute is a driving force behind community-led urban design, which believes that local knowledge and care enrich the design process. 

Since 1894, Van Alen has invested in people with a passion for improving cities through the power of architecture and design. Our public space projects build unconventional coalitions of designers, local stakeholders, and city leaders, and we support their visions through project scoping, hands-on guidance, and seed funding.

From our home in New York City, our work confronts longstanding power imbalances in citymaking, showcases the vanguard of community-led design, and supports the next generation of designers in creating more just cities.

See all work at vanalen.org.

In partnership with both The Architectural Review and the Architects’ Journal, the W Awards celebrate exemplary work by women and non-binary people, from lifetimes of achievement to the work of those with bright futures ahead, from the design of the world’s most significant new buildings to contributions to wider architectural culture conversations, and will continue to celebrate the exceptional work of people who are systemically undervalued by the society in which we live.

Who can enter?

• Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture Open to female and non-binary practice founders who are under the age of 45 (born after 1 January 1982) and based anywhere in the world

• MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice Is awarded to UK-based female and non-binary architects working in practice and who have been project architect on a building completed after 1 January 2024

• Prize for Research in Gender and Architecture Is looking to receive research projects undertaken by individuals (of any gender) or collectives from around the world investigating the spatial implications of gender and sexuality

Entries close Friday 27 November.

Find our more and enter here.

Calling All Architecture Students...

A new housing model is needed for the towns of today and tomorrow. Sited in Clarksdale, Mississippi, an historic Delta town approximately 75 miles south of Memphis, participants are to design housing for a community of 100, along with a commercial space that will serve as a hub and public face of the community. We invite imaginative proposals that promote adaptive growth, environmental stewardship, and community vitality in places often overlooked by contemporary architecture and urban planning.

Download the Brief Today!

eVolo Magazine is pleased to invite architects, students, engineers, designers, and artists from around the world to participate in the 2027 Skyscraper Competition. 

Established in 2006, the annual eVolo Skyscraper Competition has become one of the world’s most prestigious awards for high-rise architecture. It recognizes visionary ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the innovative use of technology, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organization. The competition also encourages critical investigations into globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution, providing a forum to examine the evolving relationships between the skyscraper and the natural world, the skyscraper and the community, and the skyscraper and the city. 

Participants are encouraged to consider advances in technology, the exploration of sustainable systems, and the development of new urban and architectural methodologies capable of addressing the economic, social, cultural, and environmental challenges of the contemporary city. These challenges include the scarcity of natural resources and infrastructure, rapid population growth, pollution, economic inequality, and unplanned urban expansion. 

The competition seeks to investigate the relationship between public and private space and the roles of the individual and the collective in creating dynamic, adaptable vertical communities. It also encourages the exploration of new habitats and territories based on a dynamic equilibrium between humanity and nature—new forms of responsive and adaptive architecture capable of intelligent growth through the self-regulation of their own systems. 

There are no restrictions regarding site, program, or size. The objective is to provide participants with maximum freedom to approach the project without conventional constraints and to explore their ideas in the most creative and innovative ways possible. 

What is a skyscraper in the 21st century? What are the historical, contextual, social, urban, and environmental responsibilities of these megastructures? How can the skyscraper evolve to respond to the challenges and opportunities of our rapidly changing world? 

eVolo Magazine remains committed to stimulating the imagination of designers around the world—visionary thinkers capable of initiating new architectural discourse grounded in economic, environmental, intellectual, and perceptual responsibility. Through these investigations, the competition seeks to challenge and ultimately redefine our understanding of the contemporary skyscraper, its role in shaping our cities, and its potential to improve the way we live.

• October 6, 2026 – Competition announcement and registration opens 
• December 8, 2026 – Early registration deadline (Discounted registration fee)
• February 23, 2027 – Late registration deadline 
• March 9, 2027 – Project submission deadline (23:59 hours US Eastern Time, UTC-5h) 
• May 18, 2027 – Winners’ announcement

LEARN MORE

Architects and design teams from Bulgaria and around the world are invited to participate and propose their vision for the development of one of the oldest and largest schools in Bulgaria. 

On October 7, an open international architectural competition was officially announced, with the goal of developing a concept design for a new academic wing at 18 Comprehensive School “William Gladstone” – one of the oldest educational institutions in Sofia. The competition aims to expand the school in order to provide opportunities for the development of educational resources and to transition students to a single-shift schedule.

The contest is part of an overall trend toward creating a higher-quality, modern, and sustainable educational environment that combines modern architecture, innovative educational technologies, and conditions for implementing contemporary teaching methods that meet European and global standards.

18 Comprehensive School “William Gladstone” – an extensive educational complex

As an educational institution with nearly 120 years of history, 18th Comprehensive School “William Gladstone” is the largest school in Bulgaria, with more than 2,200 students from 1. to 12. grade – a community of hundreds of students, teachers, and families that continues to grow. The need to expand the school and create a modern educational environment presents a new challenge: the construction of a new academic wing, functionally connected to the existing historic building and the Bulgarian-Japanese Cultural Center, that together form a comprehensive educational complex.

The competition proposal must also include the functional organization and landscape design of the existing schoolyard, which will be reorganized in accordance with the future construction of the new school building.

Conditions and Prize Fund

The competition is open to Bulgarian and foreign architects and their teams. Several principles have been established that designers must follow with their designs, namely recognizability, a modern educational environment, human scale, light and a healthy environment, safety, and universal design. The competition entries will be evaluated by a seven-member international jury

Prize Fund:

First Place – €30,000

Second Place – €20,000

Third Place – €10,000

Schedule

October 7, 2026 - Official announcement of the competition

January 23, 2027 - Deadline for submitting questions

January 27, 2027 - Deadline for registering on the competition website

February 1, 2027 - Deadline for submitting entries

April 16, 2027 - Announcement of the competition results  

The complete information about the school and the upcoming competition will be published on the competition’s website: https://competition.bg/18school/en/ .

We invite architecture and interior design studios from across Europe to submit their creative vision for Palazzo Rijeka, Croatia . Pls contact us for floor plan and few more details . 

Please include:

• A brief introduction to your studio.
• A portfolio of selected projects.
• A preliminary creative concept (1–3 pages), including a moodboard, visual references and a short explanation of your design approach.

Application deadline: 1 November 2026

Participation is free of charge. Preliminary concepts are submitted voluntarily and remain the intellectual property of their authors.

Shortlisted studios will be contacted to discuss potential collaboration.

Email subject: PALAZZO RIJEKA — DESIGN OPEN CALL 2026

Send applications to: lazinica1810@gmail.com

 The exhibition highlights wellbeing as the Aaltos’ major contribution to Western architectural modernism and examines how their work and philosophy approach it as a balance between people, nature, the built environment, and materials. It connects the Aaltos’ idea of holistic wellbeing with contemporary thinking and the growing desire to understand wellbeing as extending beyond the individual to concern the whole planet. 

Aalto Design – Shapes of Wellbeing is based on a concept by Pilvi Kalhama and curated by Petteri Kummala and Jutta Tynkkynen, with Carson Chan as curatorial advisor.

Multidisciplinary exhibition

The exhibition brings together a diverse dialogue of presentation methods and materials, including drawings and scale models, furniture, glass objects and material experiments, as well as artworks. The exhibition also features rarely displayed items from the museum’s collections. 

Among other works, the exhibition includes the multi-channel video installation Other Actors (2025) by London-based artist and researcher Ilona Sagar. The work explores the relationships between body and building, and between health and architecture, at the Paimio Sanatorium designed by the Aaltos. 

The Aalto Lounge, designed by exhibition architect Linda Bergroth, offers a calm space for rest and reflection and invites visitors to explore how being in a space affects their body and mind in the presence of authentic Aalto objects.

The exhibition is realized in collaboration with the Alvar Aalto Foundation, the Paimio Sanatorium Foundation and Artek. Ilona Sagar’s work is produced in collaboration with the Saastamoinen Foundation. 

Art and architecture occupy distinct cultural and disciplinary territories, yet their practices repeatedly intersect. This conference considers how the conditions in which architecture and art are made, encountered, and circulated to shape their meaning, use, and value. Bringing together recent history and contemporary practices, “Moving Things About” examines how distinctions between art and architecture are constructed through questions of purpose, place, use, authorship, audience, and value. Rather than seeking to collapse disciplinary boundaries, it asks what those boundaries make visible: why similar objects, spaces, projects, or ideas can acquire different meanings as they move between cultural contexts, and what these shifts reveal about the institutions and systems of value that surround them.

For much of the 20th century, the White Cube provided an enduring framework through which the relationship between art and architecture could be understood. Emerging from modernist ideas about abstraction, functionalism, and the suppression of ornament, the white, cubic, unadorned space promised a seemingly neutral backdrop—one in which art might be encountered independently from the contingencies of everyday life. Yet this neutrality was always constructed. Architecture did not disappear; rather, it established the conditions through which art was seen.

The persistence of the White Cube is perhaps as significant as the many models that have developed alongside it. Museums have moved into existing buildings; temporary structures and installations have become cultural destinations; festivals have produced their own architectures; and artists have increasingly engaged buildings, environments, infrastructure, and public space as both medium and subject. Architects, meanwhile, have designed for artists, collaborated with them, made exhibitions and installations, and produced work that circulates within the institutions and economies of art. What emerges is less a progression from one model to another than an accumulation of different—and sometimes contradictory—ideas about what art and architecture are for, where they belong, and how they acquire meaning and value.

The significance of this question today lies in the fact that the cultural landscape is increasingly fragmented and contested, while the physical, social, political, and institutional contexts in which work is produced have become difficult to treat as background. The fantasy of neutrality remains powerful precisely as context is increasingly foregrounded. At the same time, the distinction between art and architecture continues to carry disciplinary and cultural weight, even as practices repeatedly complicate it.

“Moving Things About” takes this condition as its starting point. Bringing together projects from recent history and contemporary practice, it considers different positions architects and artists occupy in relation to one another: artists acting as architects; architects working with artists; architects making spaces for artists; architects making art. These categories provide an initial structure, but the encounters between them open broader questions. What happens when ideas, techniques, or objects move between art and architecture? How are they transformed by medium, scale, context, audience, or institution? When does use confer value, and when does uselessness produce value of its own? What kinds of authorship and expertise do the two disciplines claim, share, or exchange?

A series of terms cuts across these practices: use and uselessness; high and low; medium; affect; scale; context; authorship; audience; and value. Rather than simply classifying work, these terms provide ways of examining how cultural distinctions are produced. A house made for an artist, an architect’s painting, an artist’s building, a museum, and a temporary installation may occupy very different cultural positions even when they share formal, spatial, material, or conceptual concerns. Putting them alongside one another makes those differences—and the systems of value that sustain them—available for scrutiny.

Organized with UCLA's Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies and cityLAB-UCLA

Michael Kimmelman is the architecture critic at The New York Times and founder of Headway. He has written from more than 40 countries and was for some years a columnist based in Berlin covering culture and politics in Europe and the Middle East. He teaches at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and his most recent book is Intimate City, about New York during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Event details

The Portugal venue is locally hosted and coordinated by the Centre for Research in Architecture, Urbanism and Design (CIAUD–UBI). The conference is organised by Alanya University, Türkiye, in collaboration with international partner universities. 

The Portugal sessions are an integral part of the unified ICCAUA2027 scientific programme, peer-review process, registration framework and proceedings. The conference welcomes original research in architecture, urban design, urban planning, landscape architecture, civil engineering, art and related built-environment disciplines. Researchers, practitioners, professionals, students and policymakers may participate in person in Covilhã or online. 

Abstracts must be submitted by 5 December 2026; the early-bird registration deadline is 5 February 2027; and accepted authors must submit full papers by 5 April 2027. 

The conference offers proceedings publication and selective opportunities for subsequent consideration by partner journals and edited books.

The World Monuments Summit is WMF’s annual flagship forum, bringing together leading voices in cultural heritage to address the most pressing challenges in preservation. Held each October in New York alongside the Hadrian Gala, the Summit considers preservation not only as safeguarding the past, but as a foundation for adaptation, renewal, and the future. 

At a time of conflict, climate change, rapid urban transformation, AI, and geopolitical uncertainty, the 2026 Summit will ask: What is truly irreplaceable—and what do we owe one another to protect it? 

EVENT SCHEDULE 

1:30 pm | What Is Irreplaceable in America? 

Heritage is passed from one generation to the next, though its meaning is often contested and reinterpreted. As America grapples with changing communities and competing visions of the past, this conversation brings together leaders in architecture, preservation, public history, and cultural stewardship. Together, they will explore how landmarks, neighborhoods, and collections are protected and interpreted, and how law, public trust, civic engagement, and institutional independence can sustain the places and stories that shape civic life. 

Featuring Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic and author; Rosie Lee Hooks, Director, Watts Tower Arts Center; and Brent Leggs, CEO, National Trust for Historic Preservation. 

Moderated by Jon Buono, Senior Regional Director, USA & Canada, WMF. 

2:45 pm | What Stays on the Wall? Murals, Memory, and the Future of Public Art 

Murals have long shaped public memory, reflecting politics, identity, and power. From monumental state commissions to community-led expressions of justice, they tell stories about the people and institutions that shape urban life. As cities evolve and neighborhoods transform, preserving murals raises important questions: when walls become contested sites of history, who decides what endures, and why? 

Featuring Simon Castets, Executive Director, Keith Haring Foundation; Renato González Mello, Art historian and researcher, UNAM; Barbara Haskell, Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art; and Ben Wiedel-Kaufmann, Lecturer in Art History, The Open University.

Moderated by Jonathan S. Bell, Senior Vice President of Global Preservation Strategy and Director of the Suzanne Deal Booth Institute, WMF. 

4:00 pm | From Preservation to Sustainability: The New Landscape of Heritage Philanthropy 

As cultural heritage faces growing threats from climate change, conflict, and natural disasters, safeguarding it requires new forms of collaboration. This conversation explores how philanthropy, business, and the public sector can build resilience in a time of constrained resources through long-term investment, innovative partnerships, and shared stewardship. Panelists will examine what it takes to protect the world's irreplaceable places for future generations. 

Featuring William Raynolds, Program Director, The J.M. Kaplan Fund; Clément Rouxel, General Delegate, AXA Foundation for Human Progress; Coline Pont, Chief Sustainability Officer, ACCOR; and Debora Trein, Senior Director, Science, National Geographic Society. 

Moderated by Bénédicte de Montlaur, President and CEO of WMF. 

Additional program highlights will be announced in the coming days. 

This event is free and open to the public; registration is required.

wmf.org/events/2026-world-monuments-summit

Borrowed Earth is a newly commissioned work from Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO that embraces impermanence, participation, and the quiet transformation that comes with age. Constructed from rammed earth—a technique rarely used in this region—the work is made from locally sourced soil. Its form is elemental: a composition of columns, at once architectural and inseparable from the landscape. As the seasons shift and weather takes its toll, the columns will slowly erode, gradually blending back into the ground from which they came. In doing so, they make the passage of time visible, revealing the fragile bond between humans and nature. This architecture is meant not to last, but to belong: to land, to change, and to the cycles of nature itself.

The opening will be celebrated with a live musical performance by Lita Vinueza at 3 PM. Presented in the open air alongside Bilbao’s work, Vinueza will respond to Borrowed Earth using custom-designed electronic instruments. 

An Ecuadorian-American anti-disciplinary artist building cultural infrastructure through sound, instrument design, performance, public programming, and collective experimentation, Vinueza is the founder of Sonic Liberation Devices (SLDs), a collective and research platform developing experimental instruments and open-source technologies rooted in accessibility, anti-ableist design, collective knowledge, and decolonial approaches to sound.

This opening will conclude Art Omi’s fall architecture programming.

Free. All ages. RSVP encouraged. Walk-ins always welcome.

Chicago takes its name from Shikaakwa, an Algonquin word commonly translated as “wild onion,” “garlic,” or “striped skunk,” referring to the pungent ramps that once flourished in the marshlands long before the city was built. Before its river was reversed and its land engineered, the region was a mosaic of peat bog, prairie, and shallow wetland.

SHIKAAKWA unfolds as a continuous architectural cross-section through a Louis Sullivan-inspired office tower, descending from ornate corporate interiors through mechanical systems, geological strata, and into a mythical landscape far below. Floor slabs dissolve into sewers, soil, and root systems before giving way to an alliaceous dreamworld of bioluminescent fields, mycelial transit networks, and cathedral-like chambers of wild grasses and luminous wetland flora.

Rendered in a saturated, retro-futurist palette of deep greens and blues, luminous corals, ochres, and lavender, the landscape takes on the graphic quality of a psychedelic architectural illustration. Designed for the extreme horizontal format of the 150 Media Stream, the work becomes an ethereal sectional drift through an otherworldly reimagining of Chicago’s submerged ecological past.

RELATED EVENTS

Wednesday, November 4, 2026, 6PM
Reception with Olalekan Jeyifous

Event details

Modernism Week's signature October event takes place October 15 - 18, 2026 in Palm Springs, California. The event features midcentury modern architecture, art, interior design, landscape design and vintage style. The annual Fall festival features over 50 exclusive activities that include architecture tours, social events, and unique experiences unique to Modernism Week and Palm Springs. All activities are open to the public.

A portion of ticket proceeds benefit Modernism Week (a non-profit organization) and other local preservation, neighborhood, and community groups.

Event details