Superurbanism

Manifesta is an itinerant European Biennale and art-as-catalyst-for-development event that launched in 1996. In its 30th year, it arrived in the Ruhr Valley. Its founding director Hedwig Fijen and its first creative mediator and architect / planner Josep Bohigas spoke to Tim Abrahams.

An Fonteyne is the Brussels-based co-founder of noAarchitecten and a leading light in the design consortium that is designing Kanal Centre Pompidou. In the second part of their interview, she spoke to Tim Abrahams about the origins of retrofit.

Liam Young is an Australian-born architect, film director and artist who co-runs the M.A. in Fiction and Entertainment at Sci-Arc in Los Angeles. He spoke to Tim about his new show at the Barbican and the death of 60s environmentalist utopias.

Kanal Centre Pompidou in Brussels is one of the most important art museums built in Europe in the last couple of decades and will draw huge attention across the world when it opens later this year. Tim spoke to An Fonteyne, co-founder of noAarchitecten and a leading light in its design team alongside members of noArchitechten, Sergison Bates and EM2N.

Tobias Walliser is a director of LAVA Architects: an international network of offices known for their research on the combination of technology and the built world. LAVA’s global work spans architecture, interiors and master planning. Tim spoke to him about their work at the Dubai, Osaka and Riyadh Expos.

Niall McLaughlin is an Irish-born British architect whose work has been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize four times, winning in 2022 with the New Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He is this year's RIBA Gold Medal winner. McLaughlin is also a professor at the Bartlett at University College London.

Brendan Cormier is Curator at V&A East, the new extension of the Victoria and Albert Museum in East London. He has curated several major exhibitions for the museum including Cars: Accelerating the Modern World and Values of Design at Design Society in Shenzhen, China.

Oslo-based Nordic Office of Architecture led the redesign of Norway’s government district following the 2011 attacks, shaping into what they believe is an open, democratic civic environment. Tim gets a guided tour from the team around the new campus.

To create a coalition of architects as workers, OMA partner Reinier de Graaf has written a manifesto, Architecture Against Architecture. Are you ready to sign up? Tim takes the 14 points made by the Dutch architect – such as unions and construction moratoria – to the test.

Tim talks to one of London’s most thoughtful practitioner’s Mary Duggan about her last project; a beautiful landscaped housing project amidst parkland in suburban London. Mary also explains the surprising new direction she’s chosen to take her beautifully crafted approach to architecture in.

Rolf Fehlbaum is Chairman Emeritus of Vitra; and the client behind the architectural flourishing of the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein. Tim asks him about his studies in utopian socialism; how Nick Grimshaw took to be being bumped for Frank Gehry and much more.

Shiv Malik was formerly an investigative journalist with the Guardian. He’s also co-author with Ed Howker of the book Jilted Generation: How Britain Has Bankrupted Its Youth. He is now working with Joe Reeve on Forest City: a new town for 1 million inhabitants near Cambridge in the UK.

Sam Jacob, Dean of the Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts Vienna, has a great show on at the Hypha gallery in No. 1 Poultry, London. Tim spoke to him about the complex ways architecture and money relate and where ruins feature in this tangle of meaning.

In London a stellar cast joined Tim Abrahams and regular News Review contributor Vicky Richardson for some drinks and nibbles to reflect on the architectural highlights of 2025.

Peter Murray is a London institution himself, although he is also the founder of several. He spoke to Tim about his ongoing investigations into how City Architects are defined in successful cities around the world and how they could be reintroduced into the UK. He also shared some personal news.

Pete Collard is exhibitions curator at the RIBA; and the brains behind a new show held at RIBA North in Liverpool called Home Ground, the Architecture of Football. Tim spoke to him about an architectural typology that was developed in the home of football but increasingly found its apogee away in Europe.

With controversy lingering over his personal conduct, three major new museums designed by David Adjaye open this month. Tim Abrahams goes beyond the scandal to explore his commitment to Africa’s cultural and social transformation.

The Superurbanism News Review is back again! Tim sits down with our good friend Vicky Richardson , former Architecture Curator at the Royal Academy to discuss the latest events in the architecture world and reaction to them. Award season is upon us in the United Kingdom and we talk through the early responses to Witherford Watson Mann’s victory in the Stirling Prize and much more.

In the early 21st century, Olafur Eliasson helped define a new era of public art with works that took on nature for scale. Tim Abrahams met him at the new Oxford North development and asked him what he makes of his metier as a public artist in a new era when who the public might be is less clear and the idea of nature is unstable.

Tim heads out to Almaty in Kazakhstan to talk to Asif Khan about his work on the Tselinny; an incredibly painstaking transformation of a 1964 Soviet cinema into an arts centre, which he undertook with Kazakh wife the architect Zaure Aitayeva.