Master Class in Alexandria
Master Class in Alexandria
Mar 4, 2025
Mar 4, 2025
The Snøhetta Foundation’s Master Class in Alexandria brings together young architects, artists, and designers from around the world to explore how design can serve as a tool for dialogue, learning, and transformation. Hosted in partnership with the Library of Alexandria and the Alexandria and Mediterranean Research Center, the program takes place where one of history’s greatest centers of knowledge once stood — a city that continues to symbolize openness, exchange, and curiosity.
The Master Class is part of the Foundation’s global education program, building on a long-standing ethos of collaboration and shared learning. Each edition combines Sensing Space, Poetry, and Presentation Technique — three complementary ways of understanding and expressing ideas. Through these elements, participants learn not only how to design, but how to think, feel, and communicate through design.
Sensing Space introduces movement and physical awareness as tools for creativity. Participants explore how architecture begins in the body — in the gestures, directions, and relationships that form between people and place. Poetry gives form to thought and emotion, helping students discover the rhythm of their ideas and the power of language to express design intent. Presentation Technique teaches clarity, confidence, and storytelling — skills essential to sharing complex concepts with diverse audiences.
Over three days, the Master Class unfolds as a laboratory of ideas. Participants work in teams to respond to a shared theme, engaging with local craftspeople, researchers, and artists. The focus is on process rather than product — learning through doing, reflecting, and collaborating across cultures and disciplines. Evening lectures and discussions connect contemporary practice to the region’s deep architectural and philosophical traditions, bridging past and future.
The setting of the Library of Alexandria carries special significance. More than three decades after Snøhetta designed the building as a symbol of international cooperation, it now serves as a classroom where that vision is renewed. Here, architecture is not only studied — it is lived as a form of exchange, echoing the Foundation’s belief that learning and creativity are collective acts.
The Master Class in Alexandria is the first in a series of global programs connecting institutions in Mumbai, Berlin, and Oslo. Together they form a growing network of educators, practitioners, and students who share the belief that design is not a solitary act, but a social responsibility — one that can help reconnect people, place, and the planet.
Through this initiative, the Snøhetta Foundation continues to explore how design can shape understanding — and how learning itself can become an architecture for coexistence.
The Snøhetta Foundation’s Master Class in Alexandria brings together young architects, artists, and designers from around the world to explore how design can serve as a tool for dialogue, learning, and transformation. Hosted in partnership with the Library of Alexandria and the Alexandria and Mediterranean Research Center, the program takes place where one of history’s greatest centers of knowledge once stood — a city that continues to symbolize openness, exchange, and curiosity.
The Master Class is part of the Foundation’s global education program, building on a long-standing ethos of collaboration and shared learning. Each edition combines Sensing Space, Poetry, and Presentation Technique — three complementary ways of understanding and expressing ideas. Through these elements, participants learn not only how to design, but how to think, feel, and communicate through design.
Sensing Space introduces movement and physical awareness as tools for creativity. Participants explore how architecture begins in the body — in the gestures, directions, and relationships that form between people and place. Poetry gives form to thought and emotion, helping students discover the rhythm of their ideas and the power of language to express design intent. Presentation Technique teaches clarity, confidence, and storytelling — skills essential to sharing complex concepts with diverse audiences.
Over three days, the Master Class unfolds as a laboratory of ideas. Participants work in teams to respond to a shared theme, engaging with local craftspeople, researchers, and artists. The focus is on process rather than product — learning through doing, reflecting, and collaborating across cultures and disciplines. Evening lectures and discussions connect contemporary practice to the region’s deep architectural and philosophical traditions, bridging past and future.
The setting of the Library of Alexandria carries special significance. More than three decades after Snøhetta designed the building as a symbol of international cooperation, it now serves as a classroom where that vision is renewed. Here, architecture is not only studied — it is lived as a form of exchange, echoing the Foundation’s belief that learning and creativity are collective acts.
The Master Class in Alexandria is the first in a series of global programs connecting institutions in Mumbai, Berlin, and Oslo. Together they form a growing network of educators, practitioners, and students who share the belief that design is not a solitary act, but a social responsibility — one that can help reconnect people, place, and the planet.
Through this initiative, the Snøhetta Foundation continues to explore how design can shape understanding — and how learning itself can become an architecture for coexistence.
