AIA Continental Europe SPRING CONFERENCE

DATES - 07 - 10 May 2026, with optional Monday & Tuesday extensions

LOCATION - Berlin

The Phoenix: Upheavals and Rebirths

Berlin - a formerly divided, international city of significant importance in architecture, culture and politics. It has transformed and reinvented itself since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War into the German capital - again - of a unified Germany. A city where urban planning, architectural design, a river, and sustainability play a key role. A city of building reuse and re-purposing for sustainability. A city where architects, landscape architects and urban planners play a key role in the transformation. We will showcase its vibrancy and its constant evolution through the imagination of its architects. local citizens and planners.

This showplace of history, architecture and culture includes many UNESCO World Heritage sites, some of which we will visit as well on our Potsdam and Dessau extension tours. And, 2026 is the 100th Anniversary Year of the Bauhaus! The Bauhaus School and Meister Houses have been restored to their original designs. Walking tours by architects will emphasize history, urban planning and design including the City Models, Museum Island, DZ Bank (AXICA), Libeskind Jewish Museum and the Hansaviertel where in the 1950s famous International Architects designed a showcase housing community in West Berlin in an area heavily bombed in WWII as an answer to the DDR (East German) Karl Marx Allee housing.

On 2 days, many local Berlin and international award winning architects will present their work that shaped the city and Europe participate in interactive panel discussions. The President of the Federal German Chamber of Architecture, Andrea Gebhard is our keynote speaker. Our 2026 AIA President, Ilya Azaroff, FAIA, is presenting and participating in our speaker panels.

Join us as we explore the transformation from a divided city – both by a wall and politics -into a united, integrated, multi-cultural European center with sustainability and community as its models.

Preliminary program can be found here. Registration will open in February

Image ©AXICA