With a grasp of context exceeding the hackneyed deference, the Swiss architects Daniel Buchner and Andreas Bründler address it in all its complexity. Their buildings may look autonomous but all of them remedy fragments of the respective place and provide a solid identity, helped by an exquisite and atmospheric treatment of concrete: perhaps the only leitmotiv to be discerned in the selection of six works – two public buildings, two residential developmens, and two houses – that Arquitectura Viva features.

The issue’s dossier, for its part, presents recent public initiatives taken in four Spanish regions to consolidate pieces of their local heritage: the Refurbishment of Two Tanneries in Vic (Barcelona) by Elisenda Foradada, Mireia Noguera, and Miquel Autet; the Forges Cultural Center that Firm Arquitectura has fitted into the old town hall of Fonsagrada (Lugo); the restoration of the Roman Cistern of La Calderona by Pablo Millán in Porcuna (Jaén); and the revamp of Palacio Zarautz in Guetaria (Guipúzcoa) by vaumm.

In one of the articles of the Art and Culture section, Luis Fernández-Galiano assesses two works by the museum specialist Annabelle Selldorf that have received lukewarm critiques: the renovations of the Frick Collection in New York and the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London. And in tribute to Léon Krier upon his death, we print the last article he sent us: a revision of an urban plan drawn up by Le Corbusier, applying to it traditional criteria that could well be considered the Luxembourgish figure’s intellectual testament. Finally, the News and Books sections are complemented with an essay on two Chinese films that illustrate the enormous transformations the Asian giant has undergone in the first quarter of the 21st century.

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