In 2023 Copenhagen Architecture Festival will publish an International Manifesto Relay expanding the mosaic of voices started in 2019 when the festival published a Manifesto Relay of local Danish voices. The International Manifesto Relay is being published together with the UIA World Congress 2023 CPH.

The manifestos will be widely distributed and debated leading up to, during and after the 28th UIA World Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark, 2023 (UIA/Union des Architectes Internationale).“We have reached the limits of our planet and therefore we have no choice but to act now.

As architects, we hold both the potential and the responsibility to radically change the way we design and build our physical societies. We hope to use the UIA World Congress in Copenhagen 2023 as a milestone on our common path towards the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

<citation>Natalie Mossin, President of Congress and Co-Chair of the UIA Commission on the UN Sustainable Development Goals<citation>

The content of the manifestos will be mirrored by the World Congress’Scientific and Practice Tracks* and reflect the Congress’ six themes: 1:Design for Climate Adaptation, 2: Design for Rethinking Resources, 3: Design for Resilient Communities, 4: Design for Health, 5: Design for Inclusivity, 6:Design for Partnerships for Change. (More on those further below)

The themes are based on the UN 17 SDGs’ overarching mission, which definesEarth as a sophistically interlinked human-environmental system, as described in the Global Sustainable Development Report from 2019 “The Future is Now -Science for Achieving Sustainable Development” by Prof. Katherine Richardson et al.

The international manifesto relay

Humanity and the planet we inhabit are facing multiple crises: eco-system breakdowns, climate changes, continuous and growing social and economic inequalities, health crises, systemic discrimination, shortage of safe and adequate housing, and more.

Architecture and urbanism operate across and in collaboration with a variety of disciplines and sectors to address these challenges. Because the built environment has a fundamental impact on our everyday life conditions, behaviors and imagined futures, architecture and urbanism hold huge potential for promoting and ensuring the development and implementation of socially just and ecologically sustainable practices. 

Therefore, departing from the UN 17 SDGs, the UIA World Congress 2023 will explore the important relations between architecture and the complex notion of sustainability.

We are in a decade of urgency and action, and we must use events such as the UIA World Congress 2023 as a forum for change-making on a global stage. The SDGs do not directly address the agency and potentiality of architecture as a contributor to solutions; however, architecture’s inherent multi-disciplinarity and engagement across sectors, positions architectural practices as central facilitators and generators for change across many of the UN SDGs. We, therefore, wish to use the UIA WorldCongress 2023 as a vehicle to collectively explore and formulate a shared vision for how we as architects and across different contexts and agendas are part of the solution.

<citation>Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen and Martin Tamke, UIA World Congress Scientific Committee<citation>

 Copenhagen Architecture Festival initiated a national Manifesto Relay inDenmark in 2019, which brought together a heterogeneous collection of new visions for architecture’s societal role from architects, artists, decision-makers, and entrepreneurs (Manifesto Relay 2019)

Our Manifesto Relay from 2019 was greatly appreciated by professionals engaged with the built environment in Denmark, and produced a range of inspirational, novel and sometimes provoking statements on architecture’s obligation to address society’s most pressing challenges. To widen the mosaic of voices to a global and multifacetted scale seems as the obvious next step.

<citation>Josephine Michau, Festival Director, Copenhagen Architecture Festival<citation>

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The International Manifesto Relay will be widely distributed during the UIAWorld Congress 2023 and will also inform public debates, exhibitions, articles and other events leading up to and during the world congress. Furthermore, the International Manifesto Relay will be permanently accessible as a free-of-charge online resource to be utilized globally by grassroots organizations, professionals, students, decision-makers and others to inspire their work.

The format of the International Manifesto Relay, which accommodates for juxtaposition and plurality, will create a powerful and inspiring synergy between architectural practices and the novel peer-reviewed research carried out by the UIA World Congress Scientific Committee.

The Manifesto Relay and the Scientific Committee share the vision of bringing together different voices with different perspectives from different situations, creating a mosaic and proposing a space where complexity and contradictions can be shared, debated and investigated. We believe this participatory form of communication that reaches across positions, perspectives and geographies is necessary for the ongoing process of collective formulations of architecture’s contribution to the fulfillment of the UN SDGs.We really love the expansion of the collective approach of the Manifesto Relay, bridging across industry and research, and we are certain that it will present a powerful call for action and unison.

<citation>Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen and Martin Tamke, the UIA Scientific Committee<citation>

We are looking forward to revealing more in 2023.

Thank you to Realdania for the support!