Rethinking the project of space | Paola Viganò

Rethinking the project of space: A book, an Atlas, and a couple of projects
The lecture addresses the depth of the ongoing transformation; it questions the urban and territorial project, its capacity and its limits in fitting within a social, economic, and ecological framework that is undergoing profound redefinition. Through a limited number of experiences—of reading, writing, and design—the aim is to weave conceptual and operational pathways, as well as debates on the state of the project in our climates.

Paola Viganò (Sondrio, 29 May 1961), architect and urbanist, is Full Professor in Urban Theory and Urban Design at the EPFL (CH) where she directs the Habitat Research Center (HRC) and the Laboratory of Urbanism (Lab-U); she is also Professor at IUAV University of Venice (IT). She was the first woman to receive the Grand Prix de l’Urbanisme in France (2013), she is Doctor Honoris Causa by the UCLouvain in 2016 in the frame of “Utopia for our Time” and received the Flemish Culture Award for Architecture in 2017, and the Golden Medal for the Career of Milano Triennale in 2018. In 2022, she was appointed the Schelling Prize for Architectural Theory.

Together with Bernardo Secchi, she founded Studio (1990-2014) and later StudioPaolaViganò working on numerous projects and visions in Europe, including the Great Paris vision (published in La ville poreuse, 2011) and the Antwerp Structural plan (published in Territories of a New Modernity, 2006). In 2025 StudioPaolaViganò has been recompensated with the Brussels Architecture Prize for Public Spaces and the Lifetime achievement Award to Paola Viganò. Her recent projects deal with urban and territorial design and the design of public space. 

The Biopolitical Garden. Space, Life, Transition (Actar 2024) is her latest book.