As part of the 2026 UIA World Congress in Barcelona, Josep Lluís Mateo participated as moderator of the public debate The Future of Architecture and Architectural Criticism, organized by the International Committee of Architectural Critics.
Together with Wilfried Wang, President of CICA , Josep Lluís Mateo led a discussion bringing together architects, critics, academics and researchers to reflect on some of the most pressing challenges facing the discipline today: the social and environmental responsibilities of architecture, the impact of artificial intelligence on design and construction processes, and the qualities that future architectures should embody.
The debate took place on 29 June 2026 at the Design Hub Barcelona and will feature contributions from an international panel of scholars, practitioners and critics. The event formed part of CICA’s ongoing commitment to fostering critical discourse and advancing architectural culture worldwide.
Moderators:
Wilfried Wang, Berlin/Shanghai, and Josep Lluís Mateo, Barcelona.
Speakers:
Lluís Ortega, Barcelona
José Juan Barba, Madrid
Maria Goula, Cornell/Barcelona
Nuria Arredondo Vergara, ETSAB, Barcelona
Martina Basualdo, UPC, Barcelona
Arnau Pascual Carreras, MArch ETSAB, Barcelona
Júlia Santín i Miracle, UPC, Barcelona
Peng Rui, Tongji University, Shanghai / UPC, Barcelona
Ana Tostões, CICA Director, Lisbon
Excerpt from Josep Lluís Mateo’s opening remarks at the debate:
«Our activity is in the present with a presence, more or less powerful of the past. But, very often, expands over the future.
Time is change, but our activity, has a certain conceptual continuity, in the sense that its focus is materializing needs, dreams, passions… transforming gas into solid.
The world without architecture would be totally impossible to understand. Materiality is a need in the global digital presence, probably making us more necessary than ever.
Some new questions and tools emerge, of course. For instance, the possibility of the Artificial Intelligence, and the rhetoric on the sustainability. But in the end, in my opinion, the real invention of the future is connected to quality, to beauty. Is a specific answer to a specific problem and situation but with the quality, that could emerge as permanent and general.
In this sense, the role of the critic has always been, and still is now, to explain, develop, propose, discover the quality of the contemporary scene. To introduce a light to orient the actual chaos, more important than ever.»
