Photographing an architecture festival: places, people, ideas
The list of images a festival of ideas needs, from the venue to the talks to the exhibitions, with Festival Architettura Torino 2026 at the Ex Mercato Ittico.
An architecture festival is a festival of ideas, and ideas are not easy to photograph. You photograph the people who discuss them, the places that host them, the exhibitions that give them form.
From 7 to 9 July 2026 Festival Architettura Torino asked the city Who will live in the empty houses?, a title inspired by a collection of writings by Ettore Sottsass. Promoted by the Fondazione per l’architettura / Torino with the Turin Order of Architects, it was the first public event to reopen the Ex Mercato Ittico at Porta Palazzo, a nineteenth-century building left empty for years and set to become a cultural centre. Theme and venue coincided: an empty house lived in again for three days.
The shot list
Before a festival we prepare a list like this one, shared with the organisers. It makes sure nothing is forgotten and that everyone knows which pictures are needed first.
| What | Why it is needed | When it arrives |
|---|---|---|
| The venue, empty and full | Telling the building and its transformation | Selection the same day, archive later |
| Entrances and arriving visitors | Showing the scale of participation | Same day |
| Speakers while they talk | Press, social media, thanking the speakers | Same day |
| The audience listening | Communication, partner reports | Same day |
| Group photos with promoters and partners | Institutional communication | The same evening |
| Exhibitions and installations | Documentation, archive, curators | In the following days |
| Details: set-up, graphic materials | Social media, graphic design archive | In the following days |
The venue
The entrance of the Ex Mercato Ittico during the festival.
Tiles, basins, large arched windows: the building was part of the theme. That is why we photographed it both empty and full of people. Together the two series tell the transformation better than any caption.
The people
The audience at a talk, among the tiles of the old market.
Three days of talks: the opening by the Foundation’s president Alessandra Siviero, Lorenzo Bellicini’s talk (CRESME), Umberto Napolitano’s keynote (LAN), the session on artificial intelligence and housing, the award ceremony of the Future Homes Europe competition for designers under 35. These are institutional pictures, but they can have character if you choose the right moment: a pointing hand, a laugh, the audience leaning forward.
Exhibitions and installations
One of the festival’s exhibitions, set up among the market’s basins.
The exhibitions, from Casabella’s pages on the struggle for housing to the Future Homes Europe projects, call for a documentary approach: correct perspective, legible text, faithful colour. Raffaele Salvoldi’s wooden work, La fragilità della bellezza genera responsabilità, built and dismantled during the festival, instead called for telling the passing of time, from construction to demolition.
For organisers
Share the programme, the press priorities and the people not to miss in advance. That way the photographer is in the right place when it matters, and the selection arrives when communication needs it. The festival photographs, taken together with Daniele Ratti, are on the project page.