Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta of the firm RCR have been made foreign members of France’s Académie d’Architecture, founded in 1840 as the Société Centrale des Architectes primarily to promote architectural quality. RCR in 2015 received the academy’s gold medal.

At the investiture ceremony held on 20 February 2020 at the Paris headquarters of this prestigious institution, the Catalan trio spoke on the main points behind its work: relational architecture born from shared creativity; landscape and environment linked to architecture; matter and exaltation of the void as integral elements of the expressivity of space; desire to convey emotions to the human being through spatial perception; and the idea that architects, faced with disruption, should be able to propose solutions and tackle changes of direction.

Among the current seventy foreign members of the Académie are Oriol Bohigas, Rafael Moneo,and Santiago Calatrava from Spain, and Norman Foster, Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, and Renzo Piano.

Among the current seventy foreign members of the Académie are Oriol Bohigas, Rafael Moneo,and Santiago Calatrava from Spain, and Norman Foster, Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, and Renzo Piano.