The first-ever Pan-African Architecture Biennale will open at the iconic KICC Towers in Nairobi, Kenya on September 1,2026. Curated by Italian-born Somali architect Omar Degan, in collaboration with the Architectural Association of Kenya, this inaugural edition positions the continent as a vital locus of innovation, resilience, and architectural culture.
Under the theme Shifting the Center – from Fragility to Resilience: Reclaiming Africa’s Architecture and the Future, the Biennale aims to provide a platform for critical contemporary dialogues that shape Africa’s global economic and cultural standing. It seeks to reaffirm Africa—and Nairobi in particular—as a continuum where traditional, modern, and futuristic influences intersect. The event will also highlight the challenges and opportunities posed by urbanization, climate change, and economic transformation in Africa’s rapidly evolving cities.
The choice of the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) as the venue holds deep symbolic significance. Designed in 1973 by architect Karl Henrik Nøstvik in collaboration with David Mutiso, the building embodies postcolonial ambition—a desire to express a contemporary African identity that honors the past while embracing the present and future aspirations of the International community . The Biennale invites meaningful dialogue centered on urban development, environmental sustainability, and economic innovation across the continent’s dynamic urban landscapes.
How might architecture and urban-ism emerge as tools not only of resistance or repair, but of transformation? In re-framing fragility as a generative lens, we open space for a discourse that is rooted in African realities — one that interrogates inherited spatial orders while proposing radical and grounded futures.– from curatorial statement from the Pan African Architecture Biennale
While we often told to view our buildings through a colonial lens, Omar seeks to shift this perspective toward a more thoughtful introspection—one that sees the land as a vessel of memory. He re-frames urbanization as a delicate act of conservation and preservation, aiming to revive the city’s forgotten halcyon days.
This Biennale becomes a platform for African architects, thinkers, and communities to not only reclaim authorship over their built environments but to shape global conversations on sustainability, identity, and the futures of urban life. Africa has always been a site of architectural knowledge, rooted not in abstraction, but in land, community, animals, and ancestral memory. Its vernacular traditions embody centuries of adaptation to climate, resource cycles, and collective life. Architecture in Africa has long been shaped by oral histories, communal labor, and a belief that sees no separation between shelter and ecology, structure and spirit.– excerpt from the curators statement.
The Biennale anticipates hosting architects, designers, urban planners, and policymakers from all 54 African nations, alongside participants from the diaspora and the West. Together, they will engage in meaningful dialogue, propose solutions, and celebrate the continent’s rich diversity. The event also seeks to reclaim Africa’s lost glory and reposition it as a key contributor to the development of sustainable urban centers for a better future.
Click here to read full artist statement from Azure.
