Santa Caterina Market, Premio a la Permanencia
We are honoured to announce that the restoration of Santa Caterina Market has received the Premio a la Permanencia at the Premios Arquitectura 2026, organised by CSCAE.
Twenty years after its completion, Santa Caterina continues to be recognised as a living fragment of the city: a place where market, public life, housing, memory, archaeology, infrastructure and everyday rituals coexist. The award acknowledges architecture’s capacity to remain meaningful beyond its moment of completion: to stay active, generous and closely connected to the civic life of Barcelona.
Our sincere thanks to CSCAE for this recognition, and to all those who made this project possible: to Barcelona, to the neighbours, to the market workers and to everyone who continues to give life to a project so important for the city.
Photo credit: Alex Gaultier
Santa Caterina Market
Santa Caterina Market has been featured in Arquitectura Viva 284: UIA Barcelona. Arquitecturas para un planeta en transición, with an article by Laura Bonell. The article analyses the project, its intervention in the city, the design process and its colourful roof, which abstracts the colours of the fruit and vegetables of the market.
“A 19th-century food-market square was remodelled, with a colourful roof markedly cantilevering over the pavement outside, to address Ciutat Vella’s lack of public spaces.”
Photo credit: Lluc Miralles
Lars Müller Publishers
EMBT Architects is pleased to be featured in The Albanian Files: Freedom and Architecture with several projects currently being developed in Albania, including Koran Village in Pogradec, Residence and Hotel in Velipojë, Hotel Millennium in Pogradec and Zhan d’Ark Housing in Tirana.
Edited by Anneke Abhelakh and published by Lars Müller Publishers, the book brings together a selection of projects by international architectural practices working in Albania, offering a broad overview of the country’s ongoing transformation through architecture and urban design.
Photo credit: EMBT Architects
ROCA Barcelona Gallery, Barcelona
27 May 2026
On 27 May, ROCA Barcelona Gallery together with Fundació Enric Miralles presented the dialogue “Water as Invisible Matter” as part of the program “Architecture for Human, Urban and Planetary Wellbeing” of Barcelona World Capital of Architecture 2026.
The discussion featured Benedetta Tagliabue; Jampel Dell’Angelo (Associate Professor of Water Governance & Politics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Editor-in-Chief of World Development; NEWAVE PI and SENSE Director); Eva Franch i Gilabert (Architect, curator and researcher; Co-founder of FAST; Professor at UMPRUM Prague and Columbia University New York; Co-author of the book 100 Words for Water, 2025) and Arturo García (Manager, ROCA Gallery Barcelona).
This dialogue invites us to rethink the relationship between architecture, water resources and production processes from an environmental, material and cultural perspective. In this context, the concept of Architecture of Virtual Water emerges as a critical tool for understanding the real impact of design on ecosystems and on the production models that support contemporary architecture.
Photo credit: Lluc Miralles
Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Barcelona, Spain
9 June 2026
Benedetta Tagliabue, Alessandro Scarnato and Juli Capella took part in the conversation Risonanze. Architettura e vite tra Italia e Catalogna on 9 June, exploring the cultural relationships between Italy and Catalonia, with a particular focus on architecture as a field of exchange and dialogue across the two sides of the Mediterranean.
Through design experiences, academic paths, and urban models, the event reflects on historical and contemporary connections between the two cultures, highlighting how these exchanges have shaped both professional practices and personal trajectories.
Photo credit: EMBT Architects
Tirana, Albania
2 June–5 June 2026
Benedetta Tagliabue EMBT Architects participated in the second edition of the Bread & Heart Festival in Tirana. Under the theme Landscapes of Abundance, this edition shifted attention from isolated buildings to the spaces between them: landscapes, ecologies, infrastructures and living systems shaping Albania. Framed by the curatorial idea From Portrait to Landscape, the festival explored how architecture, landscape architecture, planning, art, ecology and culture can collectively respond to the rapid transformations taking place across the country.
Benedetta Tagliabue took part in several events, including a conversation with Dong Wang within the Hydrosphere session, dedicated to water as an ecological system, a territorial agent and a source of life. She also presented the book Weaving Architecture alongside Matthew Blunderfield and Joan Callís, with the special participation of Toni Gironès. The programme also included a screening of Miralles (2024), a poetic tribute to the Spanish architect Enric Miralles, directed by Maria Mauti.
The Zhan d’Ark Housing project was also presented through an exhibition of architectural models showcasing EMBT Architects’ work in Albania.
Photo credit: EMBT Architects
Dipòsit del Rei Martí, Barcelona
13 June–13 September 2026
EMBT Architects participates in The Instinct of Architecture, an exhibition curated by Arturo Frediani and Lara Alcaina that explores the origins and evolution of architecture from a new scientific and anthropological perspective, challenging conventional ideas about when and how architecture first emerged.
Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue are represented through the project La Clota House. The work consisted of the restoration and extension of two adjoining two-storey houses, transforming them into a single dwelling with a studio-library as its central element. The project reflects EMBT’s approach to memory, domestic space and the transformation of existing structures.
More information: https://www.barcelona.cat/capitalmundialarquitectura/en/programme/opening-instinct-architecture-origin-and-evolution-human-architecture
Photo credit: Jordi Miralles
Mercat dels Encants, Barcelona, Spain
17 April–11 July 2026
Fridays and Saturdays, 10:00–14:00
EMBT Architects is present in Flearchitecture, an initiative by b720 Arquitectos for Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture. The exhibition proposes a reflection on the use of what is “borrowed” as an architectural strategy. EMBT Architects participates with a model and leporello of Santa Caterina Market, reflecting the architectural process of design and construction behind the project.
Organised as a stall within the Mercat dels Encants, Flearchitecture displays objects related to recent architectural projects of rehabilitation, remodelling, urban regeneration and material reuse. The result is a fragmented yet revealing vision of “second-hand” architectures in Barcelona, inviting visitors to reflect on other lives, the passage of time and the value of what already exists.
More information: https://www.barcelona.cat/capitalmundialarquitectura/es/programa/flearchitecture-repurposing-given
Photo credit: EMBT Architects
Casa Cupra Raval, Barcelona, Spain
15 June–18 July 2026
EMBT Architects takes part in Regeneraciones: China and Spain in the Mirror, an exhibition that opens a dialogue between architectural traditions and contemporary practices in Spain and China. Curated by Li Xiangning and Manuel Blanco, the exhibition brings together a selection of projects that explore new forms of urban regeneration, sustainability and the preservation of built heritage.
EMBT Architects contributes with Kālida Sant Pau Centre, a healthcare and support facility located within the historic Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona. The project reflects a sensitive approach to heritage, creating a calm and welcoming environment for people affected by cancer, where architecture supports wellbeing through light and a close connection to nature.
Presented in Barcelona as part of Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture and in the context of the UIA World Congress of Architects 2026, this new iteration continues a project that strengthens cultural, academic and institutional ties between Spain and China, promoting knowledge exchange and international cooperation through architecture.
More information: https://www.barcelona.cat/capitalmundialarquitectura/es/programa/regeneraciones
Photo credit: Lluc Miralles