1929-2017

The son of a chaired Physics professor and of the famed lexicographer María Moliner, Fernando Ramón was born in Murcia in 1929. He graduated and earned his doctorate from the ETSAM (Madrid School of Architecture), though his most fruitful experience, and which would mark his career, was his time living in the United Kingdom, where he was a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and worked as municipal architect in Hillingdon, London. In the UK he became familiar with the housing issue, habitability codes, and prefabrication systems, and this knowledge was the base for his work as director, between 1982 and 1986, of the studies service at the Dirección General de la Vivienda (department of housing), where he promoted influential research projects on single-family housing, comfort, and sanitation. This sensibility for issues such as climate or the minimum space was present in a noteworthy list of projects and books – Miseria de la ideología urbanística (1987), La casa en España (1987), Ropa, sudor y arquitecturas (1980) –, which a whole generation of disciples, in and outside the ETSAM, where he taught, read with admiration.