Every five or six years, a different country takes the architectural lead in Europe:  England came to the fore with High Tech in the early 80s; by the end of the 80s, France came to prominence with Francois Mitterand’s great Parisian projects; in the 90s, Spain and Portugal were discovering a new tradition; and recently the focus has been on The Netherlands. In this ever shifting European landscape, Italy is now set to challenge the status quo. Already home to some of the world’s most well-renowned architects - Renzo Piano, Massimiliano Fuksas and Antonio Citterio – it also has many talented architects like Mario Cucinella, Italo Rota, Stefano Boeri, the ABDR group and Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo, who are now gaining international attention. Moreover there is an extraordinary emergence of younger architects – the Erasmus generation ­–  that is beginning to realise some very promising buildings of their own.