José Rodríguez Lucena Carlos Montes González   Spain   On view through 14 October at Plaza del Rey in San Fernando is the pavilion La Sal, a work of the architects José Rodríguez Lucena and Carlos Montes González. After ¡Qué faena(r)!, the project carried out for the city of Vigo (Pontevedra), San Fernan

Manuel Bouzas   Italy   As part of the third Festival des Cabanes, held at Villa Medici in Rome, the temporary pavilion Cabane 7L gives visitors the chance to enjoy views of the Renaissance gardens through the treetops. Raised entirely with firwood boasting sustainability c

Óscar Cruz García Pablo Paradinas Sastre   Spain   Visitable through 14 July at Vigo’s Porta do Sol is the temporary pavilion ¡Qué faena(r)! (What a Task!), the design for which won the ideas competition for the third TAC! Urban Architecture Festival, organized under the auspices of Spain’s Housing a

Mass Studies   United Kingdom   The Serpentine Gallery’s 23rd summer pavilion at Kensington Gardens in London will be visitable from 7 June to 27 October. Designed by the Korean architect Minsuk Cho of the firm Mass Studies, it is inspired by vernacular wood architecture in his cou

Lys Villalba Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco   Spain   ‘Three Landscape Essays’ is a pilot project that tests strategies to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis in Southern Europe’s public spaces. They are on display in the main courtyard of the Conde Duque Center for Contemporary Culture in Madrid

TAKK Architecture   France   Plato imagined the cave as an allegory of a sensual world that is just appearance, and this feigned background seems to materialize in the dazzling mise-en-scène that during this fashion season dresses the storefronts of the Parisian house of luxury

SO-IL   Belgium   The Brooklyn firm SO-IL designed ‘Common Thread’ for the Bruges Triennial of 2024, ongoing until 1 September. Executed in collaboration with Mariana Popescu (TU Delft) and Summum Engineering, the pavilion meanders through the courtyard of a 19th-cent

Ignacio González Galán Arantza Ozaeta Cortázar Álvaro Martín Fidalgo   Spain   The architectural project for the exhibition ‘The Shore, the Tide, the Current: An Oceanic Caribbean’ is part of the 43rd edition of the annual contemporary art fair held in Madrid known as ARCO. This year it runs from 6 to 10 March, as usual at the

Pedro Pitarch   Spain   The spatial design project for the 43rd edition of ARCO, Madrid’s major contemporary art fair, is presented as a huge work of ‘domestic urbanism’ – a veritable pop-up city on view for five days in pavilions 7 and 9 at the IFEMA premises. On a formal

Archi-Union Architects Fab-Union   China   The pavilion is planned as a recognizable gate to the park. Its complex geometry is the result of the calculation and adapts to the flow of visitors and activities nearby, while the color palette is a metaphor of the different programs offered by the

Robocoop   Italy   The Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma commissioned Lorenzo Zandri and Luca Pozzati for a temporary installation that would serve to conceal the restoration work going in the courtyard of Palazzo Mattei di Giove, designed by the architect Carlo Maderno

Foster + Partners   Saudi Arabia   The project begins with the exploration of towns and cities of Saudi Arabia, and plays with scale, light, and texture to showcase the country’s culture. The organic forms of traditional Saudi villages are evoked. Visitors enter from an esplanade wit

Selgascano FRPO   Japan   The base is designed with prefabricated modules which transport the rest of the material, and which are assembled with three cranes that become part of the pavilion. A large fabric is stretched out over the more than thirty inflatable spheres that fo

Francisco Mangado MAM Architecture   Japan   To simplify and lighten the construction of the pavilion, its design takes as reference the apparent formal simplicity of old wooden ships, while the layout of the interior spaces is inspired by the constellation of Aquarius...

b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos External Reference   Japan   The proposal stands out for its organic forms and its contact with the natural environment, establishing at the same time a connection with the sea world. The project includes several aquatic elements built using sustainable materials...

Icaria Atelier Fernando Suárez Corchete Javier Terrados   Japan   The geometry which configures the spaces is directly related to the evocation of the aquatic world: the layout of undulating surfaces can suggest water landscapes for some or wandering among boat hulls for others...

TAKK Architecture   Spain   After the fire that destroyed this old Castilian house only the stone walls remained. Its refurbishment has been carried out through the insertion of a concrete structure that completes and visually replicates the original construction...

Langarita Navarro   Portugal   Olimpo Nômade, a city for the performing artists at an itinerant music festival, is made up of three elements: an inflatable doughnut is the lounge area; a camp of bubbles, the dressing rooms; and a mirrored cube, the space for the headliners...

Tadao Ando   Australia   Visitable until 28 March 2024 at the Queen Victoria Gardens is the tenth MPavilion, designed by Tadao Ando. Every year since 2014 the Naomi Milgrom Foundation has commissioned the building of a structure that is eventually transferred to a permanent

Oualalou + Choi   Morocco   Envisioned as a village within a circle, the pavilions designed by the firm of Tarik Oualalou and Linna Choi, working out of offices in Casablanca and Paris, were the venue of the 2023 World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings, held from 9

ENORME Studio Néstor Montenegro Smart and Green Design   Japan   Besides an easterly route from the Philippines to Acapulco, the Augustinian friar Andrés de Urdaneta discovered a north-flowing current towards the Japan Sea. Both phenomena helped Spain create an enriching commercial and cultural channel in the Paci

Fenwick Iribarren Architects   Serbia   The Spanish firm Fenwick Iribarren Architects (FIA) designed and developed the project presented by Serbia for the 2027 Belgrade Expo, and it has carried the day over the other bids to host the event, including that of the city of Málaga. The Expo wi

Lina Ghotmeh   United Kingdom   Open to the public from 9 June to 29 October is the temporary pavilion of the popular Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens, London. For this summer the commission went to the Paris-based architect Lina Ghotmeh (Beirut, 1980), who designed a round

The 10th edition of Concentric, the International Festival of Architecture and Design held yearly in Logroño, took place from 25 April to 1 May. Through installations temporarily scattered around the capital of La Rioja, the annual event triggers ref

The Guardian   Oliver Wainwright   The 23rd annual Serpentine Gallery pavilion, due to open in June, is the work of South Korean architect Minsuk Cho, and his company Mass Studies. The first Korean architect to be selected for the prestigious commission, he plans to create a cluster o

In line with the restoration of the Palais Garnier, the Opéra National de Paris invited the artist JR to decorate the over-30-meter scaffolding that currently overs the facade. Two installations evoking Plato’s cave allegory were developed: Act I – L

The urban canopy that protects the whole plaza is built with two triangular timber porticoes from which hangs a huge Alicantina-type rolling shutter in a dark green tone which pays tribute to this symbol of Mediterranean culture.

TAC! Is an annual festival of urban architecture that holds is second edition in Valencia (14 September – 16 October) and Donostia-San Sebastián (10 October – 13 November). Organized by Spain’s Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA)

Ever since Napoleon took possession of the Villa Medici, it has been home to the French Academy in Rome, an institution that continues to take in gifted pensionnaires, and in addition to that, has set in motion a festival involving a competition for

With great success Logroño’s International Festival of Architecture and Design, aka Concéntrico, has for nine years now filled the northern Spanish city with imaginative ephemeral installations aimed at rethinking the urban environment and public spa

The 9th edition of Concentric, the International Festival of Architecture and Design held yearly in Logroño, took place from 27 April to 2 May. Through installations temporarily scattered around the capital of La Rioja, the annual event triggers refl

Tom Dixon, Marc Fornes, MAD architects, Miralles Tagliabue EMBT, and OMA – Office for Metropolitan Architecture presented their installations at Milan Design Week, part of the 61st Salone del Mobile, open from 18 to 23 April 2023.

By eating, we digest territories. At the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, due to open on 19 May, visitors to the Spanish Pavilion will have the opportunity to embark on a journey into architectures that feed us, fr

Lebanese-born, Paris-based architect Lina Ghotmeh, has been selected to conceive the 22nd Pavilion. Ghotmeh’s Pavilion will be unveiled at Serpentine South in June 2023.  This pioneering and prestigious commission, which began in 2000 with Dame Zaha

The Dutch artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta founded DRIFT in 2007. It is a studio that specializes in aerial installations, with a multi-disciplinary team working on experiential artistic creations. In collaboration with the companies Drone Sto

The Guardian   Oliver Wainwright   The artist has built a space for quiet contemplation in homage to his roofer father, but the materials seem too clean-cut and corporate to fit the idea. A tolling church bell has joined the summer sounds of birdsong and tinkling fountains in Kensingt

Fed up perhaps with all the artsy airs that architects sometimes take on, the Serpentine Gallery in London has this year decided to assign its summer pavilion directly to a conceptual artist. Eclectically trained in urban planning and ceramics throug

Desert Sun   Brian Blueskye   Six artists have waited two years to feature their work at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and the installations feature themes of gathering, the local environment, immigration and a nod to historic design. This year's mix of artists a

The Guardian   Oliver Wainwright   Inspired by the kilns of Stoke-on-Trent, the Chicago artist’s Black Chapel will host bands, including his own, and also provide ‘a place of quietude’ where even the British weather is welcome. The Serpentine Gallery’s annual summer pavilion will take

The Economist   The 25m-high artificial hill at one end of Oxford Street dubbed the Marble Arch Mound opened in July. It was supposed to help lure shoppers freed from lockdown away from internet stores and back to Britain’s best-known shopping thoroughfare. But once

Expo 2020

The World Expo of 2020 has opened its doors. Already the web is flooded with night views of pavilions silhouetted against the excessive backdrop of Dubai. And proliferating alongside the myriad images are the words of a rhetoric which, while continui

Themed ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future,’ the first major international event ever to be held in the Middle East will until 31 March 2022 exhibit proposals for development that the participating nations have set up on the premises, in the spiri

A work of Brut Deluxe / Ben Busche + Miguel de Guzmán, Ring is a light installation created for Lichtfest Leipzig 21 and has been set up in the heart of the German city, at Burgplatz. The Leipzig Festival of Lights commemorates the demonstrations tha

AD   Pratyush Sarup   Alexander McQueen creative director Sarah Burton’s vision of the McQueen SS22 woman as a storm chaser required a lofty stage and with the show signalling the iconic British brand’s homecoming that was two decades in the making, the stakes were even h

The Economist   There are no politics at the Middle East’s first world’s fair. The setting is dramatic. Visitors passing from the harsh midday sun to the dim interior are met with slogans. “We believe that every human is part of the collective conscience,” reads a m