Five International Architecture Festivals Worth Building a Trip Around
Back in the early aughts, a small group of Palm Springs residents banded together to organize a symposium exploring and celebrating the architecture style the desert resort is renowned for, Midcentury Modernism. Held in 2006, Palm Springs’ inaugural Modernism Weekend hosted a mere 300 attendees and offered a program of just six events. But in the two decades since, the event has metastasized from a humble weekend affair to an 11-day economy-sustaining juggernaut, bringing thousands upon thousands of visitors from every corner of the globe to the desert community to enjoy a schedule packed to the proverbial rafters with home tours, lectures, high-end auctions, film screenings, come-one-come-all cocktail parties, and exclusive fundraising galas.
Of course, Palm Springs isn’t the only town with an architecture fest worth packing your bags for—nowadays, architecture and design buffs can find major festivals taking place all over the world that are dedicated to a wide range of vernaculars, including Victorian, Colonial, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Midcentury Modern, Contemporary, and futuristic. Robb Report rounded up five of the most notable upcoming events to add to your travel calendar.
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MODERNISM WEEK
Palm Springs, California
February 15 – 25, 2024
This titan among festivals manages to attract new attendees and keep previous ones coming back year after year with a schedule that mixes reliable annual favorites (entertainer Charles Phoenix’s hilarious retro slide shows; bus tours of historic neighborhoods) with an impressive line-up of carefully curated brand-new events. Highlights among this year’s offerings include a rare tour of the 2-acre grounds of the Richard Neutra-designed Kaufmann Desert House; a lecture on ceramic murals by celebrated sculptor and ceramist Stan Bitters; and a presentation on William Haines, decorator to many stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age as well as the interior designer of Walter and Lenore Annenberg’s stunning Sunnylands estate in nearby Rancho Mirage.
ART DECO FESTIVAL
Napier, New Zealand
February 15 – 18, 2024
Located on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, in Hawke’s Bay, the port city of Napier became the site of the worst natural disaster in the country’s history on February 3, 1931, when it was struck by a massive 7.8 earthquake that killed 256, injured thousands more, and reduced nearly all the buildings in the town’s center to rubble. Two significant outcomes would result from the tragedy, one being an improvement in building codes, the other being that the town was rebuilt in the dominant architectural style of the time, Art Deco, but with a distinctively regional flair.
Every February, Napier celebrates its unique architectural heritage with a three-day jubilee. Along with exploring the town’s bounty of well-preserved, extravagantly detailed Art Deco structures, festivalgoers can further immerse themselves in the spirit of the Jazz Age with vintage car and motorcycle parades, 1930s-fashion shows, an antiques-and-collectibles fair, a Borzoi dog competition, Charleston lessons, a bathtub gin-making workshop, a formal, vintage-attire-required ball, and a “Gatsby picnic” and concert on the lawn of the Mission Estate Winery (Hawke’s Bay is also New Zealand’s second-largest wine-producing region).
BRUSSELS ART NOUVEAU & ART DECO FESTIVAL
Brussels, Belgium
March 9 – 24, 2024
The capital of Belgium and the EU, Brussels is also known as the Art Nouveau capital, boasting nearly 1,000 buildings designed in the ornately expressive style pioneered by Belgian architects such as Victor Horta, Paul Hankar, and Jules Brunfaut. A reaction to the more rigid, classically influenced architecture dominant in the mid- to late-1800s, Art Nouveau incorporated organic forms and motifs found in nature while embracing the technology and materials of the Industrial Age such as cast iron, glass, and ceramic tile.
This unique architectural heritage is given its due every year during Brussels’ Art Nouveau & Art Deco festival (BANAD). Taking place over three consecutive weekends in March, the festival provides participants the opportunity to tour dozens of the metropolis’s Art Nouveau and Deco treasures, many of which are normally inaccessible to the public. Other special events on the schedule include bike and bus tours, film screenings, concerts, seminars, kid-friendly activities, and an antique and collectibles fair.
CONCÉNTRICO FESTIVAL OF ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Logroño, Spain
April 25 – May 1, 2024
Launched in 2015, the Concéntrico Festival of Architecture and Design temporarily transforms the ancient city of Logroño in northern Spain into a vibrant playground of innovation and creativity. Concéntrico invites visitors to tour the city through installations, exhibitions, and performances that create a connection between the venues, squares, streets, courtyards and hidden spaces that often go unnoticed in their daily lives. Along with the numerous experimental installations, or “interventions” created by national and international architects and designers, the upcoming festival features a new competition, “The Street in 10 years,” wherein five teams will be selected to design an area of the city with a 10-year strategy.
LONDON FESTIVAL OF ARCHITECTURE
London, England
June 1 – 30, 2024
The largest architecture festival in the world, the London Festival of Architecture takes place across the city every June, its stated mission being to spark discussions, test new ideas, and uncover and promote new talent. Along with design competitions, art installations, talks by renowned architects such as Pritzker winner David Chipperfield, and guided tours, the month-long celebration offers hands-on workshops teaching participants things like masonry and designing a geodesic dome.
Now in its twentieth year, the LFA is organized each year around a different concept; for 2024’s festival, Londoners are invited to reimagine how their city might become a more sustainable, equitable, and collaborative environment.
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