Center Christo and Jeanne-Claude at the HEAT Fest Sofia!
From June 4 to 6, the iconic Banski Square in front of the Regional History Museum of Sofia became a stage for ideas, art, urban solutions, and community energy. The first edition of HEAT FEST 2026 – Sofia Climate Festival, organized by the Sofia Development Association and the Sofia Municipality, with the support of Oborishte District, brought together citizens, scientists, artists, and international experts through a rich three-day program dedicated to the future of the capital.
The inaugural edition of the festival focused on one of the most important topics in adapting cities to climate change: the waters of Sofia. The area surrounding the Central Mineral Baths was chosen symbolically as a place where the city’s history, collective memory, and thermal heritage converge. At a time of increasingly frequent heat waves, water and green infrastructure are key to creating a cooler and healthier urban environment.
A special guest of the festival was Jessika Roswall, European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, who toured the festival grounds and explored the green solutions presented throughout the event.
The activities, sustainable strategies, and the architectural competition for the complete transformation of the former Gabrovo Textile Technical School into the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Center were presented in a dedicated thematic area of the festival. The New European Bauhaus Zone provided a platform for discussions on sustainable design, architecture, and innovative urban solutions developed through active public participation.
It was emphasized that the Center exists not only as a future capital investment project. The building is already hosting artist residencies, workshops, exhibitions, and temporary events. Through these activities, the site is gradually opening itself to artists, local organizations, students, citizens, and partners from Bulgaria and abroad. This approach allows the future identity of the Center to be shaped long before the completion of the renovation works. The content, encounters, and participation of people are considered just as important as the physical transformation of the building itself. In this way, the Center is already establishing itself as a space for culture, education, contemporary ideas, and dialogue between industrial heritage and new creative practices.
Gabrovo’s presentation also highlighted two complementary European projects connected to the building and the future function of the Center. The Workwear Metamorphoses project, funded through the Creative Europe Programme, focuses on Gabrovo’s industrial history, textile heritage, contemporary design, and artistic exchange between European cities. Within the framework of the project, artists explore workwear as an element of industrial culture. Through creative residencies, meetings with experts, interviews with people connected to the textile industry, and a future traveling exhibition, the project links local memory to a broader European narrative about labor, production, and contemporary art.
The second project, AccesS, funded through the Horizon Europe Programme, focuses on accessibility, sustainability, and smart solutions for buildings and urban environments. The Christo and Jeanne-Claude Center is one of the pilot sites where new approaches to universal accessibility, energy efficiency, digital tools, and more inclusive environments will be developed and tested. Together, these projects build upon the core investment and demonstrate how a building can evolve not only as infrastructure, but also as a place for knowledge, cultural memory, innovation, and participation. This was the central message presented by Gabrovo within the New European Bauhaus Zone: that sustainable urban development is not only a matter of construction, but also of content, people, accessibility, and long-term public value.
