Rio de Janeiro has been selected to host World Congress of Architects UIA 2020, one of the world's most important architecture forums. The news was announced yesterday by one of the UIA's former presidents and current Secretary of the Session, Vassils Sgoutas, during the General Assembly of this year’s congress in Durban, South Africa. Rio's application was spearheaded by Brazil's most important architecture institution - Instituto de Arquitetos do Brasil (IAB). The South American city beat out two strong candidates: Melbourne and Paris.
After the presentations of the three candidate cities, two rounds of voting began. In the first round Rio got 85 votes, against Melbourne’s 73 votes and Paris’ 44 votes. In the second round Rio beat Melbourne with 107 votes against 95.