As part of the commemoration of the Year of Gaudí 2026, which celebrates the centenary of the death of Antoni Gaudí, the Barcelona and Girona branches of the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC), led by MIAS Architects —under the direction of the architect and AIA Honorary Fellow Josep Miàs— and Dr. María José Masnou, architect and researcher, former vice-president of the China Chair, are promoting a conference dedicated to Gaudí's legacy and its contemporary projection.

The conference will take place in Barcelona on Friday, July 3, 2026, in the COAC auditorium, and is intended as a space for meeting and reflection between China and Catalonia on the work and legacy of Antoni Gaudí. In this sense, it is also configured as a bridge of dialogue between Barcelona 2026 and Beijing 2029, both venues of the World Capital of Architecture promoted by the UIA, with the aim of strengthening international ties and the exchange of knowledge between diverse architectural contexts.

The welcome will be given by Sandra Bestraten, dean of the COAC, who will introduce the session with a brief presentation of the interactive tool Constellation Gaudí, a proposal that visualizes the relationships between Gaudí and his collaborators over time and that will serve to contextualize the contents of the session. Iñigo Ugalde, director of the School of Architecture of UIC Barcelona; Ricard Planas, founder and CEO of Bonart; and Josep Miàs, director and founder of MIAS Architects will also speak.

We will therefore have the interventions of:

- Liu Yulong, president of the Architectural Design and Research Institute of Tsinghua University Co., Ltd.;

- Wang Jian, Director General of The Architectural Design & Research Institute of Zhejiang University;

These two speakers constitute the international core of the conference and will provide diverse perspectives on the reception and reinterpretation of Gaudí in the Chinese context.

Once the conferences have concluded, a round table will be moderated by Kevin Zhang, BIA (Beijing Institute of Architects), Josep Miàs and María José Masnou, with the participation of the two Chinese speakers and the artist and sculptor Jordi Barbany, craftsman, and Mercè Riba, sculptor and artist. This conversation aims to deepen the dialogue between China and Catalonia, as well as between different architectural cultures based on Gaudí's work, understood as a shared heritage and a reference for contemporary practice.