Participating at the congress held in the Csörsz Street Sport Hall was the New York-based Hani Rasid, who is just as well known in the fields of furniture design and city planning as he is in architecture, as well as his South African peer Jo Noero, whose work is grounded in social conscience.
Speakers at the congress, entitled New Goals and Techniques in Architecture, focused on sustainable architecture, the latest developments in computer-aide design (CAD) and the urgency of the need to deal with climate change.
The Hungarian architect Gábor Zoboki touched on sustainable architecture showing the designs for the corporate headquarters of mobile services company Pannon on the outskirts of Budapest.
The meeting at the weekend reiterated a point made at the 23rd UIA Congress in Turin last summer, that there ought to be more communication as well as joint projects between professionals in different UIA member states in the region. A year ago, Hungarian architects made an effort to forge stronger ties with their peers in neighbouring countries by establishing the Visegrad Four Architects Society, which includes professionals from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The leaders conference involved professionals from 33 member countries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Hungary is represented in the organization through the Hungarian Association of Building Artists. Established in 1902, the Hungarian association is one of the oldest of its kind in Europe. It has been a part of UIA since 1955.
The UIA II leaders conference was held in Budapest in 2003, too.
Author: Eszter Götz
