For the thirtieth anniversary of one of the most widely circulated books by Juan Antonio Ramírez, Architecture for the Screen: A Critical Study of Set Design in Hollywood’s Golden Age (English edition 2004), originally published in Spanish in 1986 by Hermann Blume, in its ‘Art, Criticism and History’ series carefully edited by Luis Fernández-Galiano, we see it fit to remember the historian and critic’s work; a double celebration because it has also been thirty years since a very young Ramírez won the National Essay Award.

Juan Antonio Ramírez (1948-2009) was one of the most lucid and extraordinary intellectuals of Spain of the last decades; his analyses and critiques were right on the spot in the major historic-artistic debates of the final third of the 20th century; and indeed few figures of Spain’s academic circle have attained the fame, prestige, and even international recognition that he did.

The creative force of his mind forced him to develop, early on, a language of his own that was unbiased, rich in personalized grammars, and as recognizable as it was inimitable. A tireless traveler and avid collaborator of this magazine, for which he wrote some of his best articles, Ramírez produced writings which continue to nourish the study of architecture and urbanism...[+]