José Luis Picardo

Alternating with prizes for specific works by young architects, every two years the Antonio Camuñas Foundation takes stock of the oeuvre of a consolidated professional. The honoree of this year’s ninth trophy was José Luis Picardo, Jerez-born and Madrid-based, whose painting and drawing aptitudes made him drop law school for studies in architecture. The same talents led him to collaborate as a muralist in works of Luis Moya and Luis Gutiérrez Soto, including hotels like the Plaza in Madrid and Los Cisnes in Jerez. Travels through the peninsula awakened in him an interest in historical and vernacular architectures, and this is patent in the Andalusian houses he built in the Costa del Sol and in Jerez. In Madrid he raised apartment towers for the construction company Urbis, and he also carried out projects in Jaén, Guadalupe or Carmona for the parador system, the state-owned hotels fitted out from historic monuments. Perhaps Picardo’s best known edifice is the Juan March Foundation in Madrid’s Salamanca area, for which he renounced his repertoire of vernacular elements in favor of a simple prism with rounded edges.