The third edition of the Basque Country International Architecture Biennial Mugak/ will host the Europan international congress in San Sebastian

2021 September 8

• 300 architects and urban planners from all over Europe will meet in November at the Kursaal Congress Center to reflect about the future of the cities and architecture.
• The international forum will be held between sessions of the European competition and will bring together landscape urban planners, institutional managers and young promises of European architecture from nine countries and 40 cities.

The Basque Country International Architecture Biennial Mugak/, which will be held between October 27 and November 27 in San Sebastián, Vitoria and Bilbao, will host at the Kursaal Congress Center of San Sebastian the forum between sessions of the Europan competition on November 4, 5 and 6. This international meeting is held in a different European city every two years and it will bring 300 professionals of European architecture and urbanism to the Basque Country this autumn.

With more than 30 years of experience, Europan is a European platform for innovation in architecture, urbanism and landscape that every two years organizes a European competition of ideas and projects aimed at young architects under 40 years old. It brings together policy and institutional leaders together with experts from the academic field and young promises of architecture. The theme of the 16th current edition is 'Living Cities'. It involves 40 locations from 9 different countries: France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden and Spain.

Each Europan call entails an 'international forum of cities', a forum to analyze and reflect about the substance of the themes raised in the light of the proposals received in each edition, and also of the concrete advances of the winning proposals of the previous edition, which are already underway lead by the young promises of European architecture. It is the opportunity to share different points of view and different ways of understanding human habitat according to countries, but also according to different professionals, different experiences and generations. This meeting will be held in 2021 in the Basque Country hosted by the Department of Territorial Planning, Housing and Transport of the Basque Government, member of the Executive Committee of Europan Spain and also organizer of the Basque Country International Architecture Biennial Mugak/.

After Brussels (Belgium) in 2017 and Innsbruck (Austria) in 2019 among other locations, Europan will reach San Sebastian this year. "We are very pleased that Europan-Europe, the European committee of the organization, has chosen the Basque Country and San Sebastian for its biannual congress between sessions, since Europan is one of our clearest initiatives to push innovation and the renewal of architecture and more specifically housing architecture", said the Director of Housing, Land and Architecture, Pablo García Astrain.