Exactly one year ago, the Instituto de Arquitetos do Brasil (IAB) hosted the 27th World Congress of Architects – UIA2021RIO. The city of Rio de Janeiro was also named the first UNESCO-UIA World Capital of Architecture. The Rio Congress was a remarkable event testifying to the resilience and optimism of Brazilians in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic that had already seen the event postponed from 2020 to 2021. The organisers reimagined the Congress and hosted it virtually thus adapting to the public health restrictions in place at the time.
UIA2021RIO was one of the biggest Congresses the UIA had ever experienced with than 88,000 participants from 188 countries; 20 keynote speakers, more than 540 speakers and 380 articles and projects selected by the Scientific Committee. The result is more than 500 hours of content that will be accessible in five languages (Portuguese, English, Spanish, French and Chinese) by registered participants up to 2023.
Here are some of the Congress highlights. This page will be updated regularly.
Achieving design excellence with a UIA Competition
During the UIA2021RIO World Congress of Architects, we invited Robert Greenwood (Partner and Managing Director Asia, Snohetta), Nahuel Recabarren (lead architect of the Bamiyan Cultural Centre, in Afghanistan) and Daniel Fraile Ortiz (lead architect Vilnius Concert Hall, in Lithuania) to talk about their experience after they won a UIA-endorsed competition.
They present:
- The Library of Alexandria competition in 1989
- Bamiyan Cultural Center competition in 2014
- National Concert Hall competition in 2019
Interview with key note speaker Francis Kéré.
The UIA thanks the IAB and all those who worked tirelessly for the success of this event.