October 13–December 1, 2026
Spain
TAC! Urban Architecture Festival celebrates its fifth edition in Spain with two temporary pavilions that explore the relationship between architecture, energy, and public space. From October 13 to November 14, FERRUM, by the architect Juan Mateos Corona, is installed in Labe Garaia Park in Sestao (Basque Country), beside the old Blast Furnace No. 1. In Barcelona, Una sombra improbable, designed by Pablo Schmidt Kamp, Rodrigo Pérez Vásquez and Santiago Rodríguez Prada, transforms Plaça de Joan Coromines, next to the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), from October 23 to December 1.
Promoted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda of the Government of Spain in collaboration with the Arquia Foundation, TAC! is an annual festival dedicated to fostering architectural experimentation, supporting emerging talent and exploring new ways of inhabiting public space. By building temporary pavilions chosen through open calls, the festival puts forward interventions that engage with the urban context and become settings for encounters, cultural activities and collective reflection. This approach brings contemporary architecture closer to new audiences and champions its capacity to transform the everyday experience of cities.
In 2026, the festival puts the spotlight on energy as a factor that has historically determined the shape of cities, from industrial infrastructure to today’s climate and environmental challenges. The two projects, chosen from 156 proposals, approach this question from different contexts, using open, reversible and adaptable structures that incorporate responsible approaches to materials and new possibilities for collective use.
In Sestao (Basque Country), FERRUM revives the memory of the town’s steel industry through an intervention that evokes and pays tribute to its industrial past. Standing next to Blast Furnace No. 1, one of the foremost landmarks of the town’s industrial heritage, the pavilion is built from steel that, once dismantled, will re-enter the production cycle, making it a recyclable structure. By reusing and regenerating materials, the project turns an activity traditionally associated with pollution into a reflection on sustainability and the potential of the circular economy.
In Barcelona, named World Capital of Architecture 2026, Una sombra improbable places shadow at the heart of an intervention that explores the changing character of the city. Through a modular, reusable infrastructure, the pavilion turns Plaça de Joan Coromines into a space where people can relax, play and gather. As sunlight passes through the structure, it casts patterns on the ground that shift over the course of the day, changing how the surroundings are perceived as the hours go by. The proposal thus turns shadow into a metaphor for Barcelona’s constant transformation, reflecting the city’s social and cultural dynamism.
Since it began in Granada in 2022, TAC!’s itinerant format has become one of its defining features. In five editions, the festival has visited nine Spanish cities, adapting each intervention to the physical, social and cultural characteristics of its sites.
After its first edition in Granada, the format expanded to two venues each year: València and Donostia-San Sebastián in 2023; Vigo and San Fernando in 2024; and Alicante, at Casa Mediterráneo, and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 2025. This year, Barcelona and Sestao have become part of a journey that treats ephemeral architecture as a tool for investigating and activating different urban landscapes.
Some of the projects presented across the various editions have won recognition beyond the festival. Lost Forest, by Julia Ruiz-Cabello and Santiago de Águila, built in Donostia-San Sebastián, received the 2024 FAD Award in the Ephemeral Interventions category. That same year, AIRE, by P+S Estudio de Arquitectura, installed in Granada in 2022, was selected for the European Prize for Urban Public Space.
Five years after its creation, TAC! continues to expand its map of interventions and bring contemporary architecture closer to citizens, while exploring all the possibilities of public space, creating places of encounter and turning each city into a new stage for experimentation.
