It is the first Italian town nominated to organize a world Congress of the International Union of Architects. Every three years, thousands of architects and students from all over the world gather for this event, which has now reached its 23rd edition, to discuss a theme linked to the future of architecture.
The title of the 2008 Congress is Transmitting Architecture, which suggests the architecture's capacity and power to mark and transmit values, emotions and different cultures over time.
Architecture must get out of a position of isolation, in which buildings and solutions are designed without truly confronting the surrounding environment, which experiences the great themes of social and economic emergency.
For architects, transmitting values means putting themselves at stake and interacting with all the players that are the protagonists of the territory transformation process. An indispensable confrontation, which may be an extraordinary drive for the proper and sustainable growth of a fast-evolving society. These are the premises of the concept of urban democracy, one of the key subjects of the Congress, which means clear communications and decisions, openness to the confrontation to receive the society's needs, with the purpose of proposing changes that are able to face and solve the great and urgent problems to be presently faced by mankind: sustainable consumption of natural resources and environmental protection, fair distribution of richness, tangible solutions to millions of human beings' plea for a decent life.

Because architecture is for everyone.