Public architects are invited to meet in Barcelona on 1 July for Finding Common Ground – Public Architects in Dialogue, a focused exchange the challenges hindering quality in public architecture, climate-resilient planning and regenerative design.
Designed to turn parallel conversations into collective action, the event is co-hosted by EIT Culture & Creativity and the World Cities Culture Forum, as part of the UIA World Congress of Architects Barcelona 2026.
The Congress, held every three years in a different city, is one of the largest global gatherings dedicated to architecture, and UIA 2026 represents a pivotal moment for European architects on the world stage. This edition will draw more than 10,000 participants and 250 speakers.
Against that backdrop, Finding Common Ground offers something unique: a focused, interactive space where public architects can surface shared challenges and explore concrete pathways for collaboration.
This collateral event brings together architects engaged in and with the public sector, from around the world, for an open exchange of knowledge, challenges and ideas, all rooted in the values of the New European Bauhaus. During an open, interactive session, participants will explore:
- Common challenges that city, state and public architects share and might collectively address
- Principles that could guide meaningful international collaboration, peer to peer, across scales and governance levels
- Formats that could enable that collaboration to go beyond networking towards collective action.
Rooted in European policy
A series of high-level exchanges has laid the groundwork for a transition in European architecture. Under successive EU Presidencies – Danish and Polish – city and state architects met in Copenhagen and Gdańsk to exchange knowledge on architectural quality, public procurement and the role of design in shaping the built environment.
At the UIA World Congress in Copenhagen in 2023, a dedicated network was established to advance international knowledge-sharing on sustainable city development, climate-resilient urban planning and regenerative building practices. The European Directors of Architectural Policies continue to meet under each EU Presidency, working towards the shared culture of architecture called for by the EU Work Plan for Culture.
The New European Bauhaus as a values framework
The New European Bauhaus (NEB) is an EU initiative that places aesthetics, sustainability and inclusion as inseparable principles for the places we build and inhabit. The vision is to engage communities at grassroots level, provide guidance and solutions, while boosting European competitiveness.
In May 2026, the European Council adopted a formal Recommendation on the New European Bauhaus, a significant step in scaling the initiative across Member States, encouraging governments to integrate NEB values into policies and funding instruments linked to the built environment and neighbourhood transformation. It positions the NEB Academy as the core skills and innovation infrastructure of the NEB.
EIT Culture & Creativity will help deliver this agenda as an implementing partner of the NEB Academy, with two initial initiatives to accelerate the shift to circular fashion and strengthen skills for sustainable lived environments.
The tools that the EIT Culture & Creativity is developing within the NEB framework, can bring value to the international exchange of practices between public architects and their transformative policy making activities.
Barcelona: from dialogue to impact
The EIT Culture & Creativity/World Cities Culture Forum event in Barcelona can help to provide key insights and tools to take the conversation further.
The session will bring together perspectives from the European Commission's Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sports and Culture, the World Cities Culture Forum's decade of city-to-city peer learning and evidence-based cultural policy, and the tools and innovation infrastructure of EIT Culture & Creativity.
Finding Common Ground - Public Architects in Dialogue takes place on 1 July, 10:00–11:30, at the Design Hub Barcelona.
This event is upon invitation only.