1919 - 2012

Julián Manzano-Monís passed away at age 93 in his native Madrid. He studied architecture in the capital and his career had an early start through Luis Gutiérrez Soto, in whose office he trained before setting up his own practice. In the 1960s and 1970s, for the private sector, he designed a range of works that show his flexibility as an architect, from a high-fashion store in Madrid to the Casas Pareadas (semi-detached houses) in the Finca del Inglés development of the Aravaca neighborhood, to later projects like the Spanish Embassy in Dakar. But his most important works were of a public nature because after passing examinations to join the corps of architects of the Information and Tourism Ministry, Manzano-Monís was placed in charge of projects and building works for the state-owned chain of hotels and hostels created by King Alfonso XIII, an enterprise that was getting a new push through Tourist Minister Manuel Fraga. So it was that Manzano-Monís built architecturally emblematic ‘paradors’ in Antequera, Torremolinos and Nerja in Málaga, Villacastín in Segovia, Málaga, Oropesa in Toledo and Zafra in Badajoz.