Portlantis in Rotterdam
27/03/2025

Portlantis in Rotterdam

MVRDV   Netherlands   Commissioned by the Port Authority of Rotterdam, Portlantis gives insight into the intricate workings of the Dutch city’s harbor. The recently inaugurated building – all of 3,533 square meters – is a stack of five rotated blocks that, besides providing exhibition spaces and public areas including a restaurant and a café, serve as an observation tower...

6 AV Proyectos for 20 euros
28/02/2025

6 AV Proyectos for 20 euros

Until 31 March, enjoy a special offer, to order 6 AV Proyectos magazines for 20 euros (shipping costs aside). You can purchase more than one 6x20 pack by returning to this page. Please contact us with any queries...

Xi’an CCBD
25/03/2025

Xi’an CCBD

Heatherwick Studio   China   A new district, designed by Heatherwick Studio, has opened in Xi’an, honoring the Chinese city’s legacy of craftsmanship and ceramics. The Xi’an Centre Culture Business District (CCBD) is south of the historic core...

Restoration of the Khan Jaljulia
24/03/2025

Restoration of the Khan Jaljulia

Elias Khuri    The town of Jaljulia – close to the historic Sea Road, which connected Egypt and Syria in the Middle Ages – features the remains of a khan or caravasar built in the 14th century. This building, once was a hub for travelers...

House X in Valdemorillo (Madrid)
21/03/2025

House X in Valdemorillo (Madrid)

Bojaus   Spain   In its abstract and material essence, the X house arises from a tension between a stunning location and the desire to inhabit it. The conflict is addressed with a firm determination to create a new element that is not ‘in,’...

AV Monografías 268-269: Herzog & de Meuron

AV Monografías 268-269: Herzog & de Meuron

Time has passed since 1980, when Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron built the small house painted in Klein blue, and also since 1999, year of their first AV issue. With almost fifty years of experience, the studio founded in their home town of Basel...

‘Housing, 50 Works in Spain’ for 60 euros

‘Housing, 50 Works in Spain’ for 60 euros

Arquitectura Viva gathers in one volume of 320 pages, with a special price of 60 euros, hardbound and in fully bilingual Spanish-English edition, 50 housing projects built in Spain since the year 2000. Always at the center of the architectural debate...

18/03/2025

Casa Umbral in Madrid

arquid   Spain   Casa Umbral (Threshold House) stands out for its unique ceramic facade and its carefully designed openings and volumes that both ensure privacy and connect with the exterior. With a total area of 768 square meters...

Highlights

18/03/2025

Winners of competitions for Fira de Barcelona

The winners of the three competitions that have been held for the renovation of the Fira de Barcelona – as part of the first phase of the overall revamp of the Montuïc trade-fair grounds – have been announced...

07/03/2025

Pol Taburet at the Hexagons Pavilion

On view through 20 April at the historic Hexagons Pavilion in Madrid’s Casa de Campo park, designed by the architects José Antonio Corrales and Ramón Vázquez Molezún, is ‘Oh, If I Only Could Listen’...

07/03/2025

Ricardo Scofidio (1935-2025)

Ricardo Scofidio has died at 89 years of age in Manhattan. In 1981 he and his wife, Elizabeth Diller, opened Diller Scofidio, which Charles Renfro joined as a partner in 2004. Works that the firm DS-R has built in New York City include the High Line...

04/03/2025

Liu Jiakun, Pritzker Prize 2025

Chinese architect Liu Jiakun wins Pritzker 2025 Born in 1956, Liu Jiakun lives and works in his native city, Chengdu, where he opened his practice in 1999. He grew up in a family of physicians...

07/03/2025

Rafael Olalquiaga Soriano (1939-2025)

The architect Rafael Olalquiaga Soriano has passed away at 85 years of age. Born in Bilbao in 1939, Olalquiaga began his professional career in 1963, when he graduated from Madrid’s School of Architecture, and in 1967 he earned his doctorate in the same institution...

19/02/2025

Living with the Rocks, by Manuel Álvarez Diestro

In this series, Manuel Álvarez Diestro covers some of the driest places on the planet, journeying through countries likes Egypt, Oman, and Iran. Here the Cantabrian photographer explores the relationship between architecture and geological formations...

Spain 2025

As every year for more than three decades, and coinciding now with the 40th anniversary of AV magazine, the Yearbook 2025 gathers in a double issue a selection of 25 works which now include, as in the previous edition, buildings by Spanish studios in other countries – Belgium, Italy, Romania, Germany, Norway, Argentina, and Taiwan –, taking stock of the growing recognition Spanish architecture enjoys beyond our borders. Thus, prominent projects like the new stadium of the Real Madrid, by L35 with gmp and Ribas & Ribas, the refurbishment of the Atarazanas in Seville by Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra...

More Housing

The AV/Arquitectura Viva project marks its fortieth birthday this year, and to celebrate this anniversary the first issue of 2025 returns to the theme of its maiden issue: collective housing. And if in 1985 it focused on the Berlin IBA, this time it presents experiments in different parts of Europe which show how the constant concern about the residential situation is now more pressing than ever. An essay by Abel Fernández Villegas calibrates the political, social, and ecological emergency that should not leave out the construction of homes, and this is followed by a selection of mass housing schemes carried out in Austria...

Raw Earth

AV Proyectos 127 explores earthen construction, a technique recovered in projects like those of Boltshauser Architekten, Studio Mumbai, Assemble or Peris+Toral, among other studios included in this dossier that shows how tradition and innovation can intertwine to explore different types, scales, and ways of dwelling. This approach is broadened with the perspectives of architect Anna Heringer and rammed earth expert Martin Rauch, discussed during aconversation on the capacity of this material to generate spaces with a huge social impact and respect for the environment. Furthermore, TAKK works...

In Construction 2

Arquitectura Viva presents —in Spanish-English and digital format only— the second compilation of buildings published in the ‘In Detail’ section of AV Proyectos. The volume, of over 200 pages, features twelve works covered with comprehensive sets of technical plans, details, and photographs documenting the different stages in the construction process of some of the most prominent buildings completed in recent years around the world. The new selection includes cultural infrastructures like the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg by Herzog & de Meuron or the Contemporary Creation Center of Córdoba by Nieto Sobejano...

Other publications

12/03/2025

Bestsellers in the Museum

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Two publishers of the Penguin Group and another of the Planeta – the latter with two titles – compete in bringing art closer to the general public. For this they use different literary tools and take distinct approaches...

12/03/2025

The Life of Eduardo Torroja

Jorge Bernabeu   In 1957 Eduardo Torroja published Razón y ser de los tipos estructurales, and the next year it appeared in the United States as Philosophy of Structures. That it was immediately translated – by Jaroslav Josef Polívka...

Future

16/10/2024

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has achieved something extraordinary

The Economist    The launch was remarkable: a booster rocket with twice the power of the Apollo programme’s Saturn V lancing into the early-morning sky on a tight, bright column of blue-tinged flame. But that wonder has been seen four times before...

02/10/2024

First map of every neuron in an adult fly brain complete

University of Cambridge   This landmark achievement has been conducted by the FlyWire Consortium, a large international collaboration including researchers from the University of Cambridge, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology...

New stadium for Manchester United
12/03/2025

New stadium for Manchester United

Foster + Partners   United Kingdom   English football club Manchester United has announced plans to build a 100,000-seat stadium designed by Foster + Partners. The ambitious project will be erected near the 74,140-seat Old Trafford...

Letter from London

Kenneth Frampton   Dear Luis Fernández-Galiano, By way of wishing you a happy New Year, I simply wanted to express how much I appreciate your faithful contribution to architectural culture...

On the Valencia fire

Ricardo Aroca   Ten people have perished in a conflagration which in a matter of minutes wrapped the facades of the fourteen-story building in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia...

Pérgola series of Grupo Ayuso

Grupo Ayuso presents its Pérgola series for terraces and gardens. With mixed aluminum and canvas coverings, it is designed to provide spaces where one can enjoy the open air while being sheltered against adverse weather...

New black PVD finish by Comenza

The Galician company Comenza, which specializes in developing industrialized railing and handrail systems, presents the PVD Black Finish for its GlassFit CC-800 and GlassFit CC-775 glass railings, offering it as an...

05/02/2025

The Aga Khan dies

Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, the Aga Khan IV, spiritual leader of Ismaeli Muslims, has died at the age of 88 in Lisbon. Born in Geneva (Switzerland) in 1936, throughout his life he did not only carry out programs in key fields like education...

23/01/2025

Dennis Crompton (1935-2025)

The British architect Dennis Crompton has died at the age of 89. A founding partner of Archigram (with Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Ron Herron, David Greene, and Michael Webb), Crompton devoted himself to preserving the group’s legacy...

20/01/2025

David Lynch (1946-2025)

The Guardian   Ryan Gilbey   David Lynch, who has died aged 78, was the most original film-maker to emerge in postwar America, as well as the greatest cinematic surrealist since Buñuel. His understanding of desire, fantasy and dread was unparalleled...

26/12/2024

Yoshio Taniguchi (1937-2024)

Yoshio Taniguchi has passed away at 87 years of age. The Japanese master completed post-graduate studies at Harvard, and worked with Walter Gropius and Kenzo Tange before founding his own studio in 1975...