The fourth edition of Milano Arch Week - a yearly event on architecture, urban transformations and cities - was hosted by the Triennale di Milano museum, Milan from September 18-20, 2020. Following the art direction of architect and Triennale’s president Stefano Boeri, the three-day event featured a polyphony of voices on both online live-streaming events and offline discussions.

The 2020 edition explored possibilities in urban and non-urban spaces with respect to contemporary challenges such as health emergencies, the increasing presence of technology, and the climate crisis. The event aimed at highlighting an impartial range of experiences and projects from around the world, amplifying the views of women architects.

The programme featured morning and afternoon sessions of round tables, talks and conferences in addition to an online event marathon of talks by speakers from across the globe. Architects, town planners, researchers and designers such as Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Izaskun Chinchilla, Odile Decq, Elizabeth Diller, Lina Ghotmeh, Steven Holl, Anupama Kundoo, Momoyo Kaijima, Martha Thorne, Benedetta Tagliabue, and Arjun Appadurai participated in the event.

Milano Arch Week 2020 was inaugurated at Politecnico di Milano, followed by many socially-distanced talk sessions by Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Izaskun Chinchilla, Blessed Tagliabue and a panel discussion by Marina Pierri, artistic director at FeST, Maria Sole Tognazzi, director of Petra and Lorenza Baroncelli, Artistic Director of Triennale Milano.

The second day of the event began with Bikearch, where attendees learned about new tactical urban planning interventions in the city of Milan. The seminars then resumed in the museum, featuring talks such as Urban Center / Ideas for Milan 2020 curated by the winning groups of the Urban Factor call of the City of Milan, and Life after Architecture after COVID with Studio Boom, AbNormal, Parasite 2.0, Forgotten Architecture, Possibility of an Island, Alvar Aaltissimo, and Azzurra Muzzonigro.

The event followed the success of Milan Arch Week Marathon, a livestream organised by Triennale Milano on May 16 this year. The seven-hour online event witnessed discussions on the challenges of a post-pandemic city, a theme that fuelled conversations at Milan Arch Week as well. Peter Eisenman, Bjarke Ingels, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Patrik Schumacher and Kazuyo Sejima had then participated in speculating the transformation of places and communities.

Last year, Milano Arch Week was held in May and investigated the theme “Architecture and the Anthropocene”, taking cues from the theme of the XXII International Exhibition of Triennale di Milano Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival. The discussions covered topics like environmental sustainability, technological development, migration phenomena and social transformations which were studied from an urban and architectural perspective.

Milano Arch Week is organised by Triennale Milano together with Comune di Milano and Politecnico di Milano in collaboration with Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

(Text by Ankitha Gattupalli, intern at stirworld.com)