The UIA's international travelling circus touched down in Turin for four days of discourse and design

Architectural Review, The, August, 2008 by Catherine Slessor

Turin, city of Fiat, Nietzsche and The Italian Job, was the latest venue for the triennial travelling circus of the UIA Congress. Appropriately, for such a car-struck metropolis, proceedings took place in the Lingotto Fiere, Fiat's sprawling former plant now refurbished by Renzo Piano into a shopping centre and conference venue (AR November 1996), neatly crystallising the shift from making things to buying them. Turin has an inherent toughness (the Baroque meets the factory), and like so many post-industrial cities, is now looking to recast itself as something softer and more appealing to tourists, bankers and cultural commissioners. Its hosting of the 2006 Winter Olympics was a milestone on a journey of urban transformation that began in the 1990s and will culminate in 2011 with celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy. An ambitious programme of new infrastructure, parks and buildings is currently ongoing, and Italy's holy trinity of Piano, Fuksas and Bellini is due to make its mark on the city (Bellini with a new library and Piano and Fuksas with office towers). The famous nineteenth-century Mole Antonelliana, originally a synagogue and now a cinema museum, may not hold the title of Turin's tallest building for much longer.

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After a disastrous opening ceremony in the courtyard of the Palazzo Venaria, where hundreds of guests, drenched by torrential downpours, stampeded for prosecco and cold potato croquettes, the congress proper got under way. As ever there was a bewildering array of talks, workshops, round tables, exhibitions and seminars, loosely yoked together under the theme of 'Transmitting Architecture'. Superstarshow-and-tell sessions were held in the Palavela, a cavernous since sports hall (minus rink, obviously), prompting Hani Rashid to exclaim that he hadn't been in a place like this since he last played hockey. (Who'd have thought it?) At the last UIA in Istanbul, it was standing room only for many of the superstars, so the Palavela could at least mitigate that eventuality. However, the organisers seriously underestimated audience numbers for a rare appearance by the 89 year old Paolo Soleri, originally a native of Turin, who has been based in the Arizona desert for decades promulgating his distinctive vision of an ecologically responsive architecture and urbanism. A compelling tour d'horizon that spanned from his earliest Wrightian-inspired forays in the late '40s, to latter-day projects for the reconstruction of post-Katrina New Orleans, was repeatedly interrupted by teeth-sucking firemen, trying to unjam fire exits packed with eager listeners. Other standouts were a hilarious and irreverent Michael Sorkin (who should really be running for US president), barnstorming Aaron Betsky, who urged architects to 'find something other than the built affirmation of the status quo', (as well as vigorously plugging his upcoming Venice Biennale gig), and a workshop on slums in developing countries, with, among others, South African architect and activist Rodney Harber, whose engaging account of trying to design decent housing on the most extreme and perilous of margins brought you back to your senses with a bump. Beating off a challenge from Singapore, Harber's home town of Durban won the honour of staging the 2014 UIA jamboree; next up is Tokyo in 2011.