Header: Courtesy of UIA World Congress of Architects
Several major architecture gatherings are scheduled for 2026, and the number alone can make it difficult for anyone to decide where to spend their time and resources. With that in mind, D5 looked closely at the international calendar and examined how each event positions itself within current discussions about practice, cities, and culture.
What follows is the result of that research: a short list of the five events we consider essential for 2026. Each has its own character, whether through rich curatorial work, a unique competition format, or a city-wide net of events that turns visitors into active participants. This is nothing more than a practical guide for architects planning the year ahead, offering the info they need to decide which events are must-attend in 2026.
1. UIA World Congress of Architects – 28 June to 2 July, Barcelona
The UIA World Congress of Architects returns to Barcelona from 28 June to 2 July 2026, bringing the global federation of architects back to a city that last hosted the event in 1996. The International Union of Architects, founded in 1948 and recognised by several UN agencies as the profession’s global body, convenes the Congress, while the Spanish organisers (CSCAE with COAC) coordinate the local structure with support from national, regional, and municipal institutions. The selection of Barcelona in 2021 also made it the UNESCO–UIA World Capital of Architecture for 2026, placing the Congress within a year-long urban programme rather than just an isolated gathering.
The edition’s title, “Becoming. Architectures for a planet in transition”, and the curators frame this event as an exploration of how spatial practices evolve when designers treat time as a material rather than a backdrop. Officially, then, this year is all about working with inherited conditions, be they physical, cultural, ecological, and/or political. This theme is organised into six “Becomings”, each overseen by one member of the six-person curatorial team: More-than-human, Attuned, Embodied, Interdependent, Hyper-conscious, and Circular. Together they form the research framework for the Congress’ three-day programme, influencing the main lectures and other sessions.
Organisation is shared between UIA and Spanish institutions. Marta Vall-llossera chairs the Congress as President, with Teresa Táboas as Vice-President and Guim Costa Calsamiglia as Director. Joan Busquets is the Honorary President, and Fuensanta Nieto leads the Scientific Committee. The latter encompasses UIA-appointed delegates from the organisation’s five regions and figures from many institutions from Barcelona, and its role is to safeguard the academic and professional quality of the programme.
The organisers describe the Congress as an “urban” event, spread across the city rather than concentrated in a single convention centre. Les Tres Xemeneies in Sant Adrià de Besòs is one of the event’s leading venues, alongside Disseny Hub Barcelona. The Sagrada Família will host prize announcements, while the closing events are planned for Moll de la Marina and Montjuïc Castle. The curators foresee attendance of more than 10,000 participants, spanning practitioners, academics, and students, making this event one of the most important, if not the most important, to attend in 2026.
Architects can expect a mix of plenary lectures and thematic sessions aligned with the six Becomings. Larger sessions will pair speakers with “critical antagonists”, encouraging rich debates, while smaller discussions and parallel panels will host both invited contributors and open call experts. According to the curators, roughly 70% of content will be invited, and 30% will be selected through submissions in three formats: projects, papers, and multimedia material.
Alongside the main programme, visitors will also be able to enjoy several research and educational exhibitions. “Research by Design” consists of 12 projects developed over a year, half in Barcelona and half in other areas, with examples such as work on water governance in Catalonia and an urban-mining competition exploring new uses for public works waste. Students and younger practitioners have two separate entryways to participate: the international ideas competition “Catalysts of Resilience”, which follows UNESCO/UIA regulations, and the week-long “International Emerging Workshop” at Les Tres Xemeneies, led by twelve practices working directly with the city under the six themes discussed above.
Finally, the Congress is also the stage for the UIA’s triennial awards. The 2026 Gold Medal and six UIA prizes (covering fields from urban planning to architectural writing and sustainable environments) will be announced during the event, alongside the first edition of the Young Architects Prize and a seminar for the Golden Cubes Awards.
2. World Architecture Festival – 2026, Miami
The World Architecture Festival has confirmed its return to Miami in 2026, maintaining the same familiar format introduced in 2008, the year the event was founded. WAF is built around a large live-judged awards programme in which teams present their projects directly to juries, a structure completely different from any other event in the market. Alongside this programme, the organisers host a conference and an exhibition of the shortlisted work and maintain the World Buildings Directory as a permanent archive of the event’s entries.
The festival will be held at the Miami Beach Convention Center, much like in previous years, and while no dates have been announced for 2026, the official site confirms that architects can already register to participate. Given WAF’s history in places such as Barcelona, Singapore, Berlin, and Amsterdam, this return suggests that there’s more to be seen in Miami.
In terms of what architects can expect, only the structural elements of the festival are confirmed at this point. The judging programme remains as the main feature, with multiple categories covering completed buildings, future projects, landscape, and interiors. During the presentations, the festival audience is invited to attend and watch, so the experience tends to revolve around moving between critique rooms, listening to juries question each team, and understanding how projects are assessed under pressure.
None of the speakers or detailed sessions for 2026 have been announced, and the organisers have not released a theme; however, the format is stable enough that attendees usually come for the mix of live debate, visibility for their work, and the variety of international practices drawn to the event. With only limited information available, the decision for architects at this stage rests on whether WAF’s familiar format aligns with their interests.
3. Chicago Architecture Biennial – 19 September 2025 to 28 February 2026, Chicago
The sixth Chicago Architecture Biennial opened on 19 September 2025 and runs through 28 February 2026 under the title “SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change”. Since its launch in 2015, the Biennial has become the largest architecture event in North America, having kept a non-competitive format built around exhibitions, research work, and public programming dispersed through several sites in the city.
Each edition has its own curatorial direction, and this year’s was shaped by Artistic Director Florencia Rodríguez, whose work focuses on architecture as a cultural practice with a big role in periods of significant social and environmental transformation. This edition brings together over 100 projects from roughly 30 countries, creating a huge sample of how architects, designers, and artists are thinking about change in material, political, and spatial terms.
The Chicago Cultural Center is still the main exhibition venue, supported by a network of partner sites that include the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Stony Island Arts Bank, the Museum of Science and Industry, and other locations where installations and events can be found. This makes Chicago an active participant of the festival, not a backdrop or host.
At the Cultural Center, the exhibitions are organised into thematic capsules focused on living spaces, housing, and functionality, with contributions from studios such as LA DALLMAN Architects and installations like “Air Vapor Barrier” by Oscar Zamora and Michael Koliner. Talks, performances, and public events are also scheduled, helping expand the Biennial’s offering and further explore how architecture responds to social conditions.
As the programme continues through early 2026, visitors will be able to continue reviewing how contemporary architecture was and is shaped by the pressures and possibilities of a moment defined by rapid change.
4. London Festival of Architecture – 1 to 30 June, London
The London Festival of Architecture will return from 1 to 30 June 2026 with the theme “Belonging”. As an annual, city-wide programme, the festival hosts several hundred events throughout London and is described as Europe’s biggest architecture festival, with its organisers and partners referring to it as the world’s largest of its kind. It is run by New London Architecture and operates through a rich curatorial team that includes a panel of experts from the fields of architecture, planning, activism, and community-focused organisations.
The festival describes “Belonging” as a way to rethink connection and collective agency, presenting austerity, displacement, inequality, rising living costs, and climate change as concerning points of pressure. It connects belonging to whoever has power over the city and to how different barriers (physical, social, or institutional) might be recognised and dealt with. Coverage of the festival highlights similar points, focusing on how people relate to a place and how those relationships shift with migration, digitalisation, and environmental change.
The LFA has maintained the same format over the years: installations, talks, tours, open studios, exhibitions, workshops, film screenings, and evening events will be hosted across the city for the duration of June. The festival’s FAQ notes annual engagement of around 700,000 people through more than 400 events, organised by a wide range of contributors such as boroughs, business improvement districts, architects, cultural institutions, universities, and community groups. This scale gives the festival a very distinctive character, as visitors can form their own routes and priorities rather than follow a pre-choreographed programme.
For architects wondering whether the 2026 edition is relevant to their practice, they must ask themselves if they are interested in how architectural work relates to social and environmental conditions. While detailed programming hasn’t been released yet, the aforementioned curation is already set in stone.
5. Biennale di Venezia, Biennale Arte 2026 – 9 May to 22 November, Venice
The 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia is set to run from 9 May to 22 November under the title “In Minor Keys”. This new edition will be based entirely on the curatorial project of Koyo Kouoh, who was chosen to lead both the exhibition and the Visual Arts Department back in December 2024. After her death in May 2025, La Biennale confirmed that her proposal had been fully outlined and would be applied as Kouoh had conceived.
Kouoh’s text positions artists as interpreters of social and psychological conditions, working through emotional elements that are slower and more intimate than the crisis-oriented framing often associated with large exhibitions. The reference to “minor keys” is presented as a way of describing practices that open up alternative perceptions of sensing and relating, again in direct contrast with direct commentary on geopolitical or environmental events.
The event will take place at familiar Biennale sites: the Giardini, the Arsenale, and other venues throughout Venice. For architects, the Giardini is a notable environment in its own right, with permanent national pavilions designed by figures such as Gerrit Rietveld, Alvar Aalto, Studio BBPR, and Léon Sneyers. Founded in 1895, the event alternates between architecture and art each year, with the art exhibition falling on even-numbered years. Even in an art year, the Biennale is still one of the most important events for architects, as it provides premium information on the energies and ideas that are behind any design: the visions people are working through, the references being shared, the political and cultural questions being raised, and the kinds of material and spatial experiments that are setting the tone for the year.
At this stage, only a few national participants have been publicly confirmed. Canada has announced Abbas Akhavan as its representative, and Albania has named Genti Korini. Other countries will follow as their respective cultural institutions complete their selection processes. The Biennale has also not yet shared which works will be hosted across its venues or the specific installations planned under the “In Minor Keys” theme.
After careful research, these 5 events seem worth keeping in mind, for different reasons, when planning out your studio’s calendar for the year ahead. Think of this as a working list rather than a verdict, as art is not created in big conglomerates but among peers and places that fuel creativity. Some of these festivals will line up neatly with existing projects or travels of yours; others may fall into the impossible once budgets and deadlines come into focus, but having them side by side should make your choice easier. So, what are your “must-attend” events?
