Manuel Gallego

Created to acknowledge “people and institutions that commend and ennoble architectural activity”, the Gold Medal of the Council of Spanish Architectural Associations has gone in its 2010 edition to Manuel Gallego Jorreto (O Carballiño, 1936). Disciple and collaborator of Alejandro de la Sota, Gallego is the author of the Museum of Fine Arts in La Coruña, for which he received in the 1997 the Spanish Architecture Award, and of many other buildings in Galicia, the geographic area where he has developed his work, based always on a deep knowledge of the environment. Examples of this are his presidential residence in Monte Pío and the research complex of the Campus Vida, both in Santiago; the cultural centers of Chantada and of Valdoviño; the headquarters of the Xunta de Galicia in Campolongo; and the Town Hall and sociocultural center in Arosa Island. Currently he is working on the Museum of Santiago and the Pilgrimages and on the refurbishment of an old paper drying shed in O Carballiño. Manuel Gallego also teaches at La Coruña’s School of Architecture where, since 2002, he is chair professor of student work and urban planning.