ACROSS: Let’s start with the essence of Utopian Hours. What makes your festival different from traditional real estate or urban development conferences?
Giacomo Biraghi: From the beginning, we’ve seen Utopian Hours not as a conference, but as a festival – a celebration of cities. It’s for those who love cities in all their dimensions: urban professionals, creatives, policy makers, city officials, students, entrepreneurs, and residents. Unlike B2B trade shows or academic symposia, our goal is to foster inspiration and connection across disciplines, not just do deals or discuss theories.
Utopian Hours has been labelled as “the Mipim of urban culture.” Where Mipim is formal and corporate, we aim for an atmosphere that is inspiring, mind-opening, creative, and fun. Our program reflects this — combining keynotes, panels, roundtables, exhibitions, networking events, and placemaking experiences. We’re creating a new narrative for cities by mixing urbanism, sociology, economics, innovation, geography, and even philosophy and marketing. It’s truly multi-disciplinary and multi-level.
ACROSS: What role does retail and shopping centers play in your programming?
Biraghi: Retail is at the core of urban life, and cities have always been places of exchange — both of goods and ideas. At Utopian Hours, we explore future urban trends that are reshaping the retail landscape. We were among the first to identify the “mall in disguise” trend: open-air malls seamlessly integrated into the urban fabric, especially visible in Asian cities like Bangkok. They blur the boundary between city streets and shopping centers.
Then there’s the rise of “blended formats”: mixed-use developments where retail coexists with housing, hospitality, or education. We’ve featured pioneering examples like The Student Hotel (now The Social Hub) and concepts from Stockholm like Urban Deli. These developments show that retail spaces can become vibrant community anchors when designed creatively.
We also highlight how placemaking and retail intersect, especially through bottom-up initiatives that reclaim or revitalize commercial areas in cities. Retail real estate is no longer just about square meters. It’s about creating urban vitality.
Impressions from 2024
ACROSS: The festival is held in Turin. Does that mean it is mainly focused on the Italian market?
Biraghi: Not at all. Utopian Hours is fully international at its core. The language is English, the speakers and audience come from all over the world, and the topics are global. Turin is simply our host city, much like Cannes is for Mipim. It’s a beautiful city, with a high quality of life, but the focus is definitely not on Italy alone.
That said, Turin benefits greatly. Our festival has catalyzed real, on-the-ground change. Projects like the Precollinear Park on an abandoned tramline, the Corso Farini public green space, and the Dorado community hub are all placemaking initiatives that were born out of the festival’s network of ideas, solutions and energies. We’ve also connected the city to a lot of international organizations like C40, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the UNDP. So, while we don’t focus on Turin, Turin is clearly benefitting.
ACROSS: Speaking of benefits: What does Utopian Hours offer that other real estate events lack?
Biraghi: Ideas, optimism and authenticity. We invite independent thinkers, entrepreneurs, doers, not just bureaucrats or executives managing other people’s money. The energy is wholly different when you’re surrounded by people who are actually conceiving and building things with their own hands and ideas. That’s why our crowd is younger, more passionate and more diverse than typical real estate conferences.
We also maintain strong partnerships with top-notch universities like LSE, MIT and the Polytechnic of Milan and Turin to name a few. This helps attract global students and researchers. The result is a unique vibe—a mix of innovation, multidisciplinarity, and practical, hands-on expertise in many professional fields around city making.
ACROSS: What’s planned for the upcoming edition in 2025?
Biraghi: The theme of this edition is “United Cities.” In a time when countries are becoming more fragmented, we believe cities can offer a model of global unity. We’re collecting 25 success stories from five continents, showing how local solutions can address global challenges like climate change, housing shortages, social fragmentation, urban identity, and more.
There will be sessions on placemaking for resilience, village-size utopias that really work, infrastructure for connection, and retail innovations that support vibrant public spaces. Expect examples of community-led initiatives and corporate strategies alike, always through a lens of practicality and inspiration.
ACROSS: How can the retail industry get involved?
Biraghi: We welcome retail professionals, developers, designers, and thinkers. There are many ways to engage: as partners, participants to our professionals-only roundtables, or attendees. We’re especially looking to connect with senior international voices who understand the evolving role of retail in city making.
Utopian Hours offers a platform not just to showcase projects but to influence urban discourse globally. And all of it happens in a festive, collaborative atmosphere and highly inspirational format — in Turin, Italy, with three full days. All for the super affordable price of €300 for professionals (limited availavility) or €55 for the 3-day Full Festival Pass.
Utopian Hours is the festival of “city making”: the ideas, projects, and places improving life in the world’s cities. For three days, the festival gives voice to the key players in these changes: city makers, activists, architects, and innovators share their experiences, stimulating new visions of urban evolution and a reflection on the notion of the city.
- 30+ international speakers
- 200 + City officials, businesses, and practitioners from more than 40 Italian cities
- 100+ City officials from all over Europe
- 3500 Participants in 3 days
ACROSS: What stood out at the 2024 edition was that your festival attracts young people in particular.
Biraghi: True, Utopian Hours naturally attracts a younger audience, too, because of its tone of voice, its contemporary visual appeal, and its core values. As already described, unlike traditional real estate or urbanism conferences, it’s held in English, with a fast pace on stage, and curated with a cultural and creative mindset. It’s a festival, not a fair or a boring symposium. The atmosphere is informal, inclusive, and forward-thinking — qualities that resonate deeply with younger generations and open-minded, dynamic professionals who are both eager to make a difference. The event also has strong ties to global issues and cutting-edge urban trends, creating a pipeline for student engagement and professional curiosity. Beyond that, the content focuses on urgent topics like climate resilience, digital rights, inclusive placemaking, and new forms of retail. All of which are directly relevant to young professionals, students, and emerging urban changemakers. Simply put, Utopian Hour feels like an event and a space where young people and dynamic urban professionals belong, where their ideas matter and where they can meet a lot of inspiring partners for their next urban challenges or city-related business ideas.
ACROSS: How do you keep the mood so positive despite global challenges?
Biraghi: Because we focus on solutions, not just problems. We feature on stage people who act, who take responsibility: urban entrepreneurs, grassroots innovators, bold designers. It’s a space where you meet the owners, the doers, not just the managers. That creates hope. And that’s our real mission: celebrating everything that’s possible in cities.
For more information, check out the website: https://utopianhours.it/en/
Giacomo Biraghi
Giacomo Biraghi is Founder & President at Stratosferica
Stratosferica is a leading organisation in the production of contents and dissemination of knowledge about urban topics and the evolution of cities. Its work range from research to design, from education to placemaking. Based in Turin, Italy, Stratosferica is a social enterprise operating both globally and locally. Focusing on territorial marketing, placemaking and community building, it features a multidisciplinary team that works on cities alongside companies and public administrations to positively impact future urban scenarios by changing the collective perception of places and empowering communities to enact those changes.
