Italcementi Group was one of the main sponsors of the 23rd World Congress of Architecture which took place for the first time in Italy, in Turin, on 29 June – 03 July 2008.

This prestigious event, held every three years, hosted thousands of professionals and specialists in the building sector coming from all over the world.
The Congress was based on an internationally recognised theme and analysed the prospects of this profession and its relationship with the great current social and cultural issues.

Innovation was the key focus of the event, a strategic asset for Italcementi Group aiming at confirming its position as an innovative company that makes sustainable building one of its pillars.

The Group commitment in this field was shown through the ITCLab, the new research and innovation centre of Italcementi Group currently under construction in the scientific and technological Kilometro Rosso Park area in Italy. ITCLab, built following the most stringent and rigorous certification scheme – the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification – is meant to be a point of reference for sustainable architecture in Europe and the benchmark of innovation for architects and the design world. All ITCLab architectural elements will be built with TX Active® due to its property of reducing the level of atmospheric pollution (as well as keeping the characteristic white colour of the building over time). The use of this product by various architects in projects that are already part of the history of contemporary architecture represents an important added value to obtain the LEED certification.

Today innovation has become a stimulating issue in the global sustainable building materials sector. The Group mission is “to create value in the building materials sector through the innovative and sustainable use of natural resources for the benefit of our communities and clients”. According to this basic idea, Italcementi embraces the challenge of innovation. During the UIA’s discussions, Italcementi presented i.nova, “another important way to show the results of our research and innovation to the general public, the designers and clients” – said Enrico Borgarello, Research and Development Director of Italcementi Group - “After TX Active®, now it is important for us that the building community will also be aware of all the other products and services that have become available as a result of our Research and Innovation activities”.

As a further engagement in the “sustainable innovation” field, the Group has recently agreed to support the Italian architect Mario Cucinella in the project of a new environmentally –friendly design accessible to everyone. The idea is to build an affordable ecologic house that embraces a new culture of sustainable living.

Italcementi has always taken into great account the relationship between the world of architecture and big designers (such as P.Nervi, R.Meier, Giò Ponti, D.Perrault, M.Botta and P.Eisenman), with milestones that have become an integral part of modern and contemporary architecture: the Pirelli skyscraper (Milan), the Church Dives in Misericordia (Rome) and the Bibliothéque Nationale de France (Paris).