(1942-2001)

On 12 March in Amsterdam, a heart attack cut short the life of Ignasi de Solà-Morales. The Catalan architect and historian was in the Dutch capital to participate in the announcement of the 2001 winner of the Mies van der Rohe Award: the Kursaal of his colleague Rafael Moneo. This prestigious trophy is linked to the Barcelona pavilion designed by the German master for the 1929 Exhibition, and its reconstruction in 1989 was one of the most mediatically far-reaching incursions of Solà-Morales into the professional practice. Grandson, son, brother, and father of architects, Solà-Morales was outstanding above all as a theorist and historian of architecture, discipline which he taught as chair professor of the School of Barcelona and on which he wrote essays like Eclecticism and Avant-Garde: The Case of Modern Architecture in Catalonia (1980) and Differences: Topography of Contemporary Architecture (1995). His typological studies, heirs of Italian historiographic tradition, led him to take part in the restoration and enlargement of several Catalan theaters before undertaking reconstruction of Barcelona’s Liceo opera house.