The architect and urban planner Paola Viganò talks to the journalist Antoni Ribas Tur about the challenges and the future of European cities, shaken by the pandemic and the heat wave experienced in recent months.

The pandemic and the heatwave that has hit Europe in recent months has shaken the foundations of life in cities. With origins as places of exchange and the primordial political loci of modernity, cities have now become hostile spaces that must be rethought bearing in mind a series of new challenges. Paola Viganò, architect, urbanist, and head of the Laboratory of Urbanism (Lab-U) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL), has studied these issues over her extensive career.

Since September 2022, she has participated as guest professor in the Territories of Contact workshops organised by the Vallès School of Architecture (ETSAV) and the CCCB, in which these challenges have been discussed on the basis of the experience of the 2022 European Prize for Urban Public Space. In the closing session of this academic project, Viganò presents her thoughts on the future of cities in Europe.