Creative Exchange 2020

At the Creative Exchange, Future Architecture fellows and member organizations launched the 2020 European Architecture Program—a series of exhibitions, conferences, lecture series, workshops, summer schools, and Archifutures publications which will take place across 12 cities around Europe.

“There is nothing more important than thinking about the future,” says platform leader and director of MAO Matevž Čelik. “The coming generation of architecture professionals is clearly aware that the issue of the future of architecture is not a matter of yet another new building. They question everything, from how to establish new ways of practicing architecture alternative spatial relations, non-speculative housing models, open-source civic platforms for architecture and urban planning. They are developing tools to reactivate derelict spaces and awaken architectural activism in order to avoid the total breakdown of the climate and the environment.”

The Matchmaking conference featured 25 submitted ideas that were selected by curators and artistic directors of 26 platform members, Future Architecture alumni and the public through online voting: Critical Practice (London, United Kingdom), Unfolding Pavilion (Trento, Italy), Agustin Schang (Brooklyn, USA), Institute for Linear Research (Triesen, Liechtenstein), Diego Sologuren, Brad Downey (Lausanne, Switzerland), TEN Studio & Alexis Kalagas (Australia), Jason Rhys Parry (Lafayette, USA), CIVIS (Cambridge, USA), Amigdala (Modena, Italy), Mies. TV (Vienna, Austria), Goda Verikaite (Rotterdam, Netherlands), Architects Climate Action Network (London, United Kingdom), Sonja Lakić (Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Architecture of Shame (Matera, Italy), Proyecto Colectivo (Baltimore, USA), Grégoire Deberdt (Paris, France), Un-war Space Lab (Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Will Jennings (London, United Kingdom), Renzo Sgolacchia (Rotterdam, Netherlands), Constantinos Marcou (Larnaca, Cyprus), Forty-Five Degrees (Berlin, Germany), Office of Human Resources (New York, USA), Itinerant Office (Madrid, Spain), TiriLab (Thesprotias, Greece) and pais(vi)agem (Barcelona, Spain).

Also featured was Monique Besten, who is the recipient of this year's Writers Grant awarded by dpr-barcelona.

This year’s Future Architecture Call for Ideas drew a record 433 entries from 53 countries. Most ideas came from emerging architects, designers, multimedia artists, urban planners, curators, and filmmakers. Most of the applicants address social and environmental issues in architecture, while other deal with challenges related to technology, planning and heritage.

As part of the Creative Exchange, Future Architecture holds several Focus Talks featuring international and leading architects as keynote speakers. Future Architecture proudly points to this year’s speakers James Taylor-Foster, writer, editor and curator of contemporary architecture and design at ArkDes in Stockholm; Mariana Pestana, architect and curator of the Istanbul Design Biennial; Marina Otero Verzier, architect and director of research at Het Nieuwe Instituut; Léa-Catherine Szacka, architect, historian and critic, and the author of Biennials/Triennials: Conversations on the Geography of Itinerant Display; and Thomas Geisler, design curator and cultural producer, and curator of the BIO 26, Common Knowledge.

Future Architecture Coordinator: Museum of Architecture and Design, Ljubljana; Members: Architektūros fondas ,Vilnius, Belgrade International Architecture Week, Organisation in Design, Utrecht, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, CANactions, Kiev, Copenhagen Architecture Festival, Design Biotop, Ljubljana, dpr-barcelona, Društvo arhitekata Istre - Società architetti dell'Istria DAI-SAI, Forecast, Berlin, Fundació Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona, House of Architecture, Graz, Kosovo Architecture Festival, Lisbon Architecture Triennale, MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome, Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, Museum of Estonian Architecture, Tallinn, Oslo Architecture Triennale, Royal Academy of Arts, London, Strelka Institute, Moscow, Swiss Architecture Museum, Basel, Tbilisi Architecture Biennial, Tirana Architecture Week, VI PER Gallery, Prague; Media partners: Architectuul, Archdaily, Arts Thread.

The Future Architecture platform is co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union.