UIA World Congress of Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

UNESCO has named Copenhagen the World Capital of Architecture for 2023, following Rio de Janeiro’s inaugural hold of the title. Besides hosting the International Union of Architect’s World Congress, the initiative also aims to highlight the path to a more sustainable future and the role architecture and urban planning play in achieving this goal. The title is awarded triannually.

Denmark has continually topped the survey for the happiest countries, according to the World Happiness Report. For urban designers, Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, has become one of the most cited case studies regarding carbon-neutral infrastructure, pedestrian and bike-friendliness, and the outstanding qualities of its public realm. According to the Dansk Arkitektur Center, over 10,000 architects are expected to visit Copenhagen in the following year, to join the guided tours, exhibitions, debates, and cultural events that put design and architecture in the spotlight.

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As expressed by 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale curator and architect Leslie Lokko, "after two of the most difficult and divisive years in living memory, architects have a unique opportunity to show the world what we do best: put forward ambitious and creative ideas that help us imagine a more equitable and optimistic future in common."

From Venice's approach to Africa as the lab for the future to Seoul's road to its next 100 years as a megapolis; from Chicago's art-meets-architecture-meets-civic-participation to Sharjah's "beauty of impermanence" in the Global South motto, 2023 will witness a series of architectural events trying to embody those forward ambitious and creative ideas, as explained by Lokko.

With the International Union of Architects (UIA)'s World Congress taking place last month, the eyes of the architecture world were on South Africa where - according to Phineas Harper of the Architectural Review - the conference was full of architects of all backgrounds with "irrepressible energy," sharing ideas on how architecture can be used for social good with an urgency that is somewhat unfamiliar in the Western world. "Whoever said architecture was stale, male and pale should have been in Durban," says Harper. You can read the full review of the event here.

At its World Congress event in Durban last week, the International Union of Architects (UIA)'s 124 member organizations declared their commitment to sustainable architecture by unanimously adopting the 2050 Imperative, a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the built environment to zero by mid-century.

The adoption of the 2050 Imperative was planned to coincide with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference that will reconvene in Paris in 2015, and has as one of its aims a plan to phase out CO2 emissions from the power and industrial sectors by 2050. The UIA stated their aim to "send a strong message to the Parties of the UNFCCC, and to the world, that we are committed to a truly sustainable and equitable future."

Read on after the break for more detail from the 2050 Imperative, including 5 key objectives

At the UIA World Congress last week, Joseph Rykwert was awarded the Jean Tschumi Prize for his work in architectural criticism and teaching over the past six decades. The prize adds to a fantastic year for Rykwert in which he received the RIBA Gold Medal and was awarded a CBE by the Queen. Read on after the break for all the winners of the 2014 UIA Prizes.

The International Union of Architects (UIA) has announced that it will award its Gold Medal to the Chinese born American architect and 1983 Pritzker Laureate, Ieoh Ming Pei.

By bestowing the most prestigious of the UIA's awards on Pei, whose “life and work spans the history of modern architecture over five continents for more than sixty years," the UIA recognizes "his unique style, his timeless rigor, and his spiritual connection to history, time and space.”

Pei will receive the UIA Gold Medal at the awards ceremony at the UIA World Congress of Architecture in Durban, South Africa on August 6th 2014.