Luis Peña Ganchegui

With a professional biography inexorably linked to the city of San Sebastián, Luis Peña Ganchegui received the Antonio Camuñas Award, granted since 1985 by the so-named Madrid foundation to acknowledge a Spanish architect’s overall work and professional and human career. Prevailing in the final vote over the candidature of Oriol Bohigas – hand in hand with whom he started up San Sebastián’s architecture school years ago – Peña Ganchegui has joined a roster that includes masters like Félix Candela, Alejandro de la Sota and Miguel Fisac. In the Basque architect’s large oeuvre, the housing developments at Motrico and Oyárzun illustrate the abstraction of vernacular types we associate with him, and the Plaza del Tenis in the Guipúzcoan capital – a stone, seaside stage that accommodates Chillida’s ‘wind comb’ sculptures – encapsulates his sensitivity to context and landscape. Far from considering retirement, Peña Ganchegui is currently drawing up plans for a cultural center in Andoain, while the Project Design chair of the school he did much to create continues to benefit from his teachings.