Alejandro Aravena to deliver the Cersaie 2026 Keynote Lecture

(July 2026) – Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena will deliver the keynote lecture in Cersaie’s “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” cultural programme. The event, organised in collaboration with the design magazine Interni, will take place on Thursday 24 September at 10.30 am at the Palazzo dei Congressi in the Bologna Exhibition Centre.

Born in Santiago, Chile, in 1967, Alejandro Aravena graduated with a degree in Architecture from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 1992. He established his own practice, Alejandro Aravena Architects, in 1994 and taught at Harvard University between 2000 and 2005. During this period, he founded Elemental, a “do tank” created in 2001 in collaboration with Harvard University and the Chilean oil company COPEC.

Led by Aravena together with partners Gonzalo Arteaga, Juan Cerda, Víctor Oddó and Diego Torres, the practice focuses on public-interest projects with a strong social impact, including housing, public spaces, infrastructure and transport. The practice’s early works include the Mathematics School at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago (completed in 1999), the Siamese Towers in Santiago (2003) and the student residence at St Edward’s University in Austin, Texas (2008).

Quinta Monroy in Iquique, Chile (2004) was the first of the practice’s internationally acclaimed incremental social housing projects, consisting of partially built homes that residents could complete according to their needs and budgets. It was followed by the Monterrey housing project in Mexico in 2010 and Villa Verde in Constitución in 2013.

This pioneering approach earned Aravena the Silver Lion at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, and in 2010 he was appointed an International Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). That same year, Elemental was commissioned to help rebuild the Chilean city of Constitución following the devastating earthquake and tsunami, further raising the international profile of its innovative housing model.

Since 2011 Aravena has been a member of the council of the Cities Programme at the London School of Economics. In 2014 he delivered a TEDGlobal talk in Rio de Janeiro and completed the Anacleto Angelini UC Innovation Center in Santiago, followed by one of the Writers’ Cabins for the Jan Michalski Foundation in Montricher, Switzerland.

In 2016, Aravena reached a major milestone in his career when he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize and appointed director and curator of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. In 2017 he received the Gothenburg Sustainability Award.

Over the following years, the practice expanded its international presence, completing the Novartis Building at the Biomedical Research Campus in Shanghai and the new EDP headquarters in Lisbon. In the fields of urban regeneration and emergency response, Elemental has led major social housing projects in Yungay, Rancagua and Santiago, as well as designing the Municipal Theatre of Constitución.

Since 2020 Aravena has chaired the Jury of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In recent years, Elemental has played a key role in responding to housing emergencies caused by climate change, developing rapid reconstruction strategies using modular prefabricated buildings, such as those implemented following the 2024 Viña del Mar wildfires. At the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, the practice presented pioneering sustainable projects involving Net-Zero Biochar Concrete, reaffirming a design philosophy that combines economic viability, functionality, social participation and environmental sustainability.

Attendance at the lecture entitles architects to two continuing professional development (CPD) credits. In addition, a visit to the exhibition itself earns a further CPD credit, which can be claimed through self-certification by submitting the admission ticket.