Being able to retrace entire years by milestones and iconic events is what one always hopes for, even in architecture: few facts, all clear, all final. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, architecture is a discipline that works more with time than with steel, so whole years can be spent in a constant, low-noise working, looking forward to upcoming moments, punctuated by a few very dense moments acting as true collectors of meaning. 

2023 in architecture was not far from this, between projects completed after more than one turn in our most anticipated list (Renzo Piano’s Istanbul Modern and OMA’s project for Manchester were almost proverbial), others still left on the list, major events on the horizon such as the Olympics and the Expo, an unfortunately not short series of farewells, and the much anticipated, criticized and acclaimed Venice Biennale.

Educated in his homeland, India, from the very beginning of his career Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi – Pritzker Prize winner in 2018 – could outline with his professional trajectory a whole new figure within the history of modern and contemporary architecture: the global architect. Between 1951 and 1954, he had worked in Le Corbusier's studio in Paris and then became supervisor for his projects in Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. Read more

In contemporary context, “global architect” is an expression that emphasizes the role and responsibility of designers with respect to events that are transforming the planet, even endangering it, like wars do. The architect talks to Domus about the humanitarian projects he is carrying out in the war-torn country, where his studio and the Voluntary Architects’ Network are working on a low-cost residential unit and a hospital in CLT for Lviv, as well as rolling out his well-proven partition system. Read more

There are few built and accomplished forms, at least for a good stretch of the exhibition, but space, space is everywhere, space and all implications running through, the denunciation of presences and absences in our visual and physical landscape telling about its origin, telling who has had the right to shape it and who has not. A Biennale where you have to sit a lot, you have to listen a lot, you have to find a lot of time to experience. It requires time. An alternative time ratio compared to that of a conventional architecture exhibition or that of a museum tour. It is a series of encounters. Read more

“Lesley Lokko’s ambitious programme brings the grand themes of the moment to Venice, but it lacks proactive approaches. A scarcity that prompts reflection on the usefulness of the Biennale and the role of architecture”, former Domus director Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani wrote in May. Read more

Born in Rome in 1931, died in 2023, Portoghesi had been working from a very early age on his own cultural, academic, and political positioning through works – such as the ruin-inspired Baldi house and, later, the Rome Mosque – writings, books, and journals. By July 1984, when he starred on the cover of Alessandro Mendini’s Domus, Portoghesi had become a reference for all Italian architectural culture, the author four years before of the operation destined to write the history of global postmodernism: the first Venice Architecture Biennale, with its Strada Novissima at the Arsenale. Read more

Only a few months away from the inauguration of the final cornerstone of Milan’s most significant urban endeavor in the 2000s – Porta Nuova – we visited the site with its designer. Read more

Along with a general transformation of Tirana’s urban space, 2023 has brought this significant redevelopment project, which aims to give the city a place that speaks to this new identity.

After half a century of an intense and precious exchange, a friendship that had given Domus some of the most interesting, sometimes disruptive and other times enlightening pages over the years, in March 2022 we had dedicated to Andrea Branzi an immersion in our archives and in his thought, which he himself had been happy to read. When he left us in October 2023, we remembered him, diving back into those pages once again, thanking him for 50 years of our road together. Read more

The world’s oldest museum for Ancient Egyptian culture approaches its bicentenary in 2024. In Turin, OMA’s David Gianotten showcased the competition-winning design to renovate it. “The transformed Museo Egizio will be even more connected with the city and publicly accessible, complementing the museum’s ambition to foster public engagement,” Gianotten said.  Read more

Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, in collaboration with Tohata Architects & Engineers and Azusa Sekkei, has designed for Expo 2025 in Osaka a green roof structure completely built of wood, which will serve not only as the main circulation ring but will also offer a panoramic view from above and protect visitors from the sun and rain. Read more

Opening image: Mario Cucinella Architects, UnipolSai Tower, Milan, in progress. Photo © Marco Garofalo