This coming Wednesday, 9 February, Museo ICO inaugurates ‘Anna Heringer: Essential Beauty’, curated by Luis Fernández-Galiano and organized by Fundación ICO.

For the first time in Spain, an exhibition focuses monographically on Anna Heringer (Rosenheim, 1977), a multi-awarded architect who has built on three continents, advocating the use of local materials and techniques to create a better future. Her work is based on exploring and harnessing architecture to support local economies and foster ecological balance. In her view, sustainability is synonymous to beauty.

The catalog, edited by Arquitectura Viva hand in hand with Fundación ICO, presents the architect's major works and projects in Bangladesh, China, Ghana, Austria, Germany, or Spain, all of which have involved traditional materials and skills, such as rammed earth. Abiding by the motto 'Architecture is a tool to improve lives,' Heringer has also pursued initiatives like the Dipdii Textiles workshop for Bangladeshi women or the Laufen Manifesto for a Humane Design Culture. Cloth-bound and hardcover, counting 208 pages and with Spanish and English texts together, the book features an article by Angelika Fitz, director of Architekturzentrum Wien in Vienna, and a conversation between the architect and the critic Peter Buchanan.

Anna Heringer: Essential Beauty