On Thursday, June 19 at 10 am, the opening of Concéntrico, the International Architecture and Design Festival of Logroño, will take place. Over six days, until June 24, the city will host 24 interventions and an ambitious agenda of activities with which Concéntrico culminates its most international season, establishing itself as an important platform for urban innovation and transformation of public spaces to foster dialogue on the future of cities.
The inauguration will take place in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, next to the 111 Farolas intervention by Bayona Studio, and will be attended by the President of the Government of La Rioja, Gonzalo Capellán; the Mayor of Logroño, Conrado Escobar; Héctor Calvo, subdirector of the Coordination Center of Cultural Industries of the Ministry of Culture; María Teresa Verdú, Director General of Urban Agenda and Architecture of the Ministry of Urban Agenda and Architecture; the dean of COAR, Ángel Carrero; Marta Vall-llossera, president of the Superior Council of Architects of Spain; and Javier Peña, director of Concéntrico.
From that point, there will be a tour of the Festival’s interventions that will end at Viña Lanciano, where the Earth Cooking project is located. The inaugural event will involve creative teams from 16 countries in Europe, America, and Asia, along with representatives from more than 30 entities, institutions, and collaborating companies that make the project’s development possible.
Concéntrico 2025 revolves around four axes on which both interventions and over forty activities scheduled in the streets, squares, lots, and gardens of the city center and Viña Lanciano in El Cortijo are based: food as a collective practice, climate as a common challenge, water as a vital and cultural resource, and social processes and rituals as a way to activate the common and shared memory.
Among the most representative installations of this new season of Concéntrico are proposals such as La Cena del Ring (France), a large circular table in the Mercado de Abastos where a performative dinner in four rounds that combines gastronomy and design will be held; Round about Baths (Switzerland), the urban sauna located in a traffic roundabout on the bustling Gran Vía in Logroño, inviting a rethink of well-being in public spaces; Ser Miento (Spain), a structure built with vine branches that create shade and memory in a plaza in the old town; Earth Cooking (Greece), an ancestral ceramic workshop in the vineyards of La Rioja combining earth, fire, and cooking; and Monumental Splash (Italy), a monumental fountain celebrating water as a collective spectacle and game.
FIRST STEAM BATHS ON GRAN VÍA
The inaugural day will begin at 10 am with a tour for media and participating teams through the Festival’s installations, from the Plaza del Ayuntamiento to Viña Lanciano.
At 6 pm, the first festival experiences will open to the public with some highlighted proposals. The urban sauna Round about Baths, designed by the Swiss studio Leopold Banchini Architects, will open its doors at six in the evening in the Plaza Salón on the Gran Vía. This installation offers a steam and cold water bath experience that invites a redefinition of well-being in urban spaces.
At 7 pm, in the vineyards of Viña Lanciano, the raw clay modeling workshop Earth Cooking will begin. Led by architect and ceramist Elina Zabeta, this activity aims to recover traditional techniques linked to the territory as a vehicle for creativity, sustainability, and tradition.
The agenda for this first day also includes experiences such as the Summer Blessings activity (6:30 pm in the Plaza de la Diversidad) where Raghad Al Ahmad will offer a sensory experience in Rooted in Warmth inviting a discovery of the flavors, aromas, and colors of the Saudi summer through this immersive installation; and the inaugural debate of the Cities Connection Exhibition to be held at seven-thirty in the evening at the Rioja Culture Center.
AN INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL WITH GLOBAL IMPACT
Concéntrico reinforces its role this year as an international reference platform in the field of urban space transformation, with recent presence in cities like Milan, Bucharest, Dammam, Madrid, and Huesca.
This edition stands out for its experiential and collective approach, with projects that invite coexistence, cultivation, play, listening, and sitting together, reactivating public spaces as a place for meeting, imagination, and shared action. Logroño, once again at the center of the conversation on how we inhabit, share, and transform the spaces around us.
Concéntrico is organized by the Cultural Foundation of Architects of La Rioja, with the support of the City Council of Logroño, the Government of La Rioja, and over 30 institutions from around the world.
