The international congress ‘Less Architecture, More City’ was held at the Baluarte auditorium and convention center in Pamplona (Navarre) on 13-14 June. It was the fifth biennial encounter organized by the Fundación Arquitectura y Sociedad, following ‘More for Less’ (2010), ‘The Common’ (2012), ‘Necessary Architecture’ (2014), and ‘Change of Climate’ (2016), all four of which proposed dealing with the crisis through an atittude of austerity and solidarity. This year’s event has launched a whole new cycle of architecture congresses in which the focus is the city, a place of freedom for the individual but also a meeting point for citizens.

After the opening ceremony in the presence of Felipe VI (the King and Queen previously inaugurated the fourth congress, and still as Crown Prince and Princess, the first), the program proceeded with the participation of the eminent writers Eduardo Mendoza and Leonardo Padura, who hailed the city as a space of freedom, introducing dilemmas that were subsequently addressed by Manuela Carmena, Mayor of Madrid, and Joan Clos, former Mayor of Barcelona. The second day began with notable professionals of architecture like Farshid Moussavi, Belinda Tato, Iwan Baan, and Dominique Perrault presenting their works and projects from an urban perspective, and closed with Salvador Rueda, Deyan Sudjic, Jan Gehl, and Jaime Lerner reflecting on urban political ecology, sustainable mobility, and the future that awaits the city, perhaps the greatest and the finest invention of human cultures.