1924-2019

Born on 23 June of 1924 in A Coruña, where he raised the majority of this buildings, Andrés Fernández-Albalat Lois died in the same city on 29 December 2019. An ETSAM graduate of 1956, his professional career started right at the beginning of the developmentalism period of the Spain of Franco, a moment he addressed with a rationalist and sober language, based on compositive clarity and tectonic austerity. Both features are present in a group of works that propped modernity in Galicia, from the Coca-Cola Factory in A Coruña (1965) to the headquarters of the Sociedad Recreativa Hípica in that same city (1967), by way of the Sargadelos Factory in Cervo (1967). These works were followed, with the arrival of democracy, by buildings like the San Lázaro Stadium in Santiago (1993). Fernández-Albalat also developed urban projects, including the large, utopian, and still admired ‘Ciudad de las Rías,’ which structured the metropolitan territory between A Coruña and Ferrol. He also taught at the school of architecture of A Coruña, and was founding dean of the Galicia Institute of Architects (COAG).