In 2026, Barcelona is the World Capital of Architecture, a designation awarded by UNESCO and the International Union of Architects (UIA) that highlights the role of architecture, urban planning and culture in shaping cities and their sustainable development. The programme runs throughout the year and brings together more than 1,500 activities across Barcelona’s ten districts, including exhibitions, tours, visits, workshops, lectures and other activities open to the public.

The capital status has also placed Barcelona at the centre of the international debate on the future of architecture. From 28 June to 2 July, the city hosted the UIA World Congress of Architects, bringing together professionals, researchers and students from around the world under the theme Becoming. Architectures for a Planet in Transition. Barcelona is also the first city to host the congress for a second time, following its first edition in 1996.

At Agpograf, architecture is also part of our history. It is one of the fields we regularly collaborate with, working with studios, institutions and professionals in the sector who need to bring their projects to print. Over the years, we have been involved in printing books, catalogues and other publications related to architecture and design.

These are particularly demanding projects from a printing perspective. Image reproduction, colour control, paper selection and finishing must respond to specific requirements so that photographs, plans, textures and materials are reproduced accurately. In this type of publication, printing is part of the way an architectural project is documented and presented.

Architecture is not only experienced in the spaces we inhabit. It is also photographed, studied, archived and shared through books and publications that document its projects, processes and history. Paper thus becomes another way of giving continuity to a work beyond the built space.

Coinciding with World Architecture Day, which this year focuses on the right to adequate housing, we celebrate this relationship between architecture and printing and revisit some of the projects that form part of our work with this sector.