The year of architecture can be summed up with the names of three architects and one city: Alvar Aalto, Renzo Piano, Peter Zumthor and Berlin.
A century later, a close reading of the writers of the period provides a portrait of the house and the city in the Spain of the 1898 crisis.
The Spanish architecture of the closing century cannot be understood properly without the context of the fractures of a turbulent history.
Harold Bloom maintains that critical judgment boils down to better, worse, or equal. What if we were to apply such criteria to the match between Madrid and Barcelona? At the risk of charicaturizing, here are some nasty comparisons. Cerdá or Arturo So
Plaza Belluga, which includes the palace of the cardinal of the same name and the monumental facade of the cathedral, is framed by buildings that the local bourgeoisie erected in times gone by to enjoy this vantage location. The razing of one of thes
The new town hall stands on a parcel at the west end of the block that closes off the south side of the church square. The parcel is the sum of three smaller ones that were occupied by the original town hall and the two buildings that flanked it. To
On the banks of the Douro, where it passes through Zamora enroute to Portugal, stood the Convent of San Francisco, a Gothic construction of which much still remains. This ecclesiastical premise is now a center for cultural exchange, thanks to a proje
The intervention rehabilitates the old palace of Montehermoso for use as a cultural center, recuperates an adjacent old water tank, connects this subterraneously to the rest of the premises, and renovates an adjoining garden. The building dates back
The choice location of the parcel, between the María Luisa Park and the Guadalquivir River, was the starting point of the proposal. In this gardened zone, the library inserts itself into the structure of the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition. Isolated a
The library presides over the Nou Campus plaza, its symmetrical facade, closing the perspective created by two parallel classroom blocks. The public space of this seat of learning is shaded by regularly planted trees. The Nous Cam
The new convention center of Valencia is situated at the northeast entrance to the city, close to the kilometer 2 point of the Ademuz road (the C-234), and will be the catalyzing hub of the zone’s urban development. The perimeter of the parcel is aff
The construction of the Guggenheim Museum and the Euskalduna Palace – the latter as a venue for conventions, concerts and operas – on a brownfield site along Bilbao’s estuary has consolidated this part of the city, which already featured the Fine Art
This project won first prize in an ideas competition that the University of León held in September 1996 to obtain an architect for its Research and Environment Institute. The brief called for economy, optimization of resources, functionality and low
The otherwise regular scheme of the University of Alicante’s new campus becomes problematic along the highway that skirts it. Placing the University Museum on a parcel bordered by the thoroughfare, between the Business School and a peripheral parking
The rector’s offices, opposite the central library, flank the large gardened plaza which articulates the campus. On land that was the Rabasa military airfield rises the new campus of the University of Alicante. Like an agora, a la
On the corner f Areal and Oporto streets stands the building that houses the office of the rector of the University of Vigo, but once was the city’s military command headquarters. The university had out grown the area available for administrative use
In a green mountain setting, the irregular silhouette of the building reflects the different environments created to the measurement of a child, where the low doorways define a domain precluding adults. Commissioned by the school
This new center for secondary education is situated at the edge of town, on land terraced in three levels that already featured a number of school constructions beforehand. The brief for this public high school basically stipulated a classroom block,
The San Fernando de Henares Swimming Center completes a municipal sports facility composed of different constructions meshed by the passage of time. The complex, set outside of the urban center, northeast of the city, is developed along Pine Promenad
In 1996, the local government of La Coruña organized a competition aimed at endowing its small municipalities with sports infrastructures. A first phase summoned participants to propose models for outdoor swimming pools adaptable to the specific requ
To concentrate the heretofore dispersed out-city bus service of Córdoba, a parcel near the railway station of the ensanche was selected. A stone wall delimits the square-shaped premise and segregates it from the adjacent streets. The different pieces
To make room for the Guggenheim Museum and Euskalduna Palace, the entire zone of obsolete industry called Abandoibarra was cleared. With the removal of old surface tracks in the area, a new railway scheme had to be drawn up for the city of Bilbao. Am
Situated within an industrial precinct on the road from Figueras to Rosas, where an exhibition center will be rising in the future, stands the headquarters of the entity in charge of the provision and maintenance of the city’s infrastructures. Urban
A corridor of offices runs round the triangular border of the site to create a travertine-paved garden with orange trees. This Project is the result of a competition that was held as part of the BIT (Balearic Information and Techn
Rubí de Bracamonte is part of a region of farming villages which have long lost the more picturesque features of their character. This building is situated at the urban edge of the small Valladolid town, and duly exploits its frontier location. An en
The old Sarriá stadium, which was home to the Real Club Deportivo Espanyol, took up a chunk of land between the Diagonal and the beltway that delimits the Ensanche (gridded 19th-century urban enlargement). Its demolition and the reassignation of adja
Santa Marta de Tormes is a municipality that arose in Salamanca’s outskirts after the city expanded beyond the natural barrier that was the river. Situated in one of various new sectors of the city, this building inscribes itself in a rural environme
Situated opposite a water tank, this site closes the corner of the block with a slatted envelope which remembers the typical bay windows of the ensanche. The top flat is set back, hidden behind its warm skin. Close to the bullring
Peter Weir’s film shows the fictional nature of contemporary life through the saccharin, manicured landscapes of America’s ‘new urbanism’.
Bilbao and Stockholm are the two poles of an architectural debate that has also emerged in the latest museum projects in New York City.
Art museums fuse with the world of fashion, creating an amalgam that is irreverent or frivolous to some, but enigmatic and seductive to many more.
Churches express the spectacular dimension of contemporary faith, made more vigorous by the weakening of confidence in civil reason.
The new headquarters of a broadcasting station illustrates the popularity of the fold among an artistic avant-garde that exchanges Derrida for Deleuze.
The accidents on the sites of works by Rafael Moneo and Eduardo Chillida make us reflect on the fragility of construction and the mortality of art.
The new airport of Hong Kong, a project recently completed by the British Norman Foster, is the largest construction of our times.
The central venue of the Soccer World Cup is the Stadium of France, a colossal and futuristic work that reflects the universality of sport.
A lyrical and emblematic project by the Catalan Enric Miralles wins the competition for the new Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.
The Swiss Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron have built a Californian winery for the prestigious Bordeaux viticulturist Christian Moueix.
The Alhambra of Granada was the backdrop of the awarding of the Aga Khan architectural prizes, which throw an unexpected light on the Islamic world.
A nursery school near Bilbao reflects the changing cultural climate of a Basque Country that faces a significant political crossroads.
On the anniversary of the Spanish Constitution, the images of the European union are contrasted with the symbols of American independence.
The centenary of Alvar Aalto celebrates an oeuvre that reconciled the culture of modernity with the vernacular tradition and the forms of nature.
The Pritzker Prize adds to its artistic roll call the technological, lyrical, and populist work of a master of scale and detail: the Genoese Renzo Piano.
The Carlsberg Prize recognizes the oeuvre of the Swiss Peter Zumthor, whose cult buildings are nurtured by material, place and memory.
The German general elections have prompted the discussion of the future of symbolic projects like the Holocaust memorial in Berlin.
Renzo Piano Until 1998, the architects honoured with the Pritzker represented all the different tendencies of the second half of the century except that of ‘high tech’. By including Renzo Piano in the list, the most prestigious prize has recognized
Álvaro Siza For this edition of the Japanese Praemium Imperiale, which tries to compensate for the lack of representation of music, fine arts and scenic arts in the Nobel prizes, the organizers moved to Munich to present the awards. Beside the Ameri
Peter Zumthor At the beginning of September, the Swiss Peter Zumthor (Basel, 1943) travelled to Copenhagen to receive the 200,000 ecus of the Carlsberg Prize from Queen Margarita of Denmark. The extraordinary critical appreciation and media impact o
Óscar Niemeyer On 23 November the Royal Institute of British Architects awarded Oscar Niemeyer (1907) with its annual recognition, the Gold Medal, at a ceremony which took place in the old British embassy in Rio de Janeiro, the Palacio da Cidade. Ha
Juan Navarro Baldeweg The figure of the German architect, Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950), is difficult to categorize in a time of avant-garde effervescence. His approach to rationalism was tempered by classicist and regionalist characteristics, in a
Rafael Moneo The young architect who travelled to Rome with a grant from the Academia de España has returned, years later, to receive an Italian accolade to add to the other distictions of his extensive career. Rafael Moneo (1937) shared the 1998 An
Fernando Chueca Goitia The Spanish Council of Architectural Associations has honoured the 83 year old architect and historian Fernando Chueca Goitia with its Gold Medal, in recognition of his “relevant contribution to the theory and history of archi
House in Púbol, Gerona The brief career of Lluís Jubert (1965) and Eugènia Santacana (1967) has been given a decisive push with the 40th edition of the Catalan Fomento de las Artes Decorativas Awards. Their bar Jazzmatazz in Barcelona was selected i
Parish Church, Marco de Canavezes Winners of the Pritzker Prize in 1989 and 1992 respectively, the American Frank Gehry and the Portuguese Álvaro Siza represent two forms of contemporary practice, diametrically opposed but with equal influence. Alth
Alicante Local Council Offices The jury of the Young Architects’Exhibition, which is organized by the Fundación Antonio Camuñas every two years, sifted through 95 works, in this fifth edition of the prize, selecting 10 for the final exhibition. They
Oíza, Távora,Mendes da Rocha, Jiménez, Dieste Spain, Portugal and Latin America have the occasion to strengthen their ties through the Iber- American Architecture and Civil Engineering Biennial, whose first edition was celebrated in Madrid during th
Multi-use Building, Mexico City The most prestigious European award has extended its radius, creating a new Latin American version of the prize endowed with 50,000 euros which, like its counterpart from the Old World, will reward a built work every
(1922-1998) The pioneer of Spanish architectural photography died in Barcelona at 75, leaving more than 300,000 negatives and prints which illustrate the extraordinary sharpness of his eye and document the history of several decades. Born in Valls,
(1901-1998) The Modern creed had one of its most passionate converts and propagandists in the Swiss-Italian Alberto Sartoris, who died on 10 March. He was born in Turin, but his family emigrated to Geneva, where the young Sartoris trained in the Sch
(1902-1998) In 1957, Lucio Costa won the competition for the pilot plan for Brasilia with a sketch in which the new capital took on the form of a bird. From these few lines was built the Modern Moverment’s urban utopia, whose embedding in Latin Amer
(1913-1998) On the 12 May Fernando Moreno Barberá died; a prolific author, he was among those who recuperated the Modern language in Spain during the fifties. Born in Ceuta in 1913, he graduated as an architect in 1940. After a spell at Paul Bonatz’
(1914-1998) The documentation of the period and measured drawings of the buildings were the best means for studying and conserving historical heritage, which the architect Luis Cervera Vera, who died in Madrid on 25 August at 84 years old, dedicated
(1900-1998) “I am nothing close to a good example of an architect. Apart from the humble quality of my work, I am on the contrary, a good example of what an architect shouldn’t do if he wishes to be one ...” These are the words of Joaquín Vaquero Pa
(1903-1998) In 1930, Piet Mondrian painted Composition in Red, Blue and Yellow. It was commissioned by Alfred Roth, who asked for the work not to be more than forty centimeters long so he could always have it with him, even when travelling. Although
(1903-1998) In the late twenties, during his stint in the studio of Le Corbusier, Albert Frey shared the drawing board with both Charlotte Perriand and Josep Lluís Sert. However, the work of this Swiss-born, American-national is commonly linked with
(1945-1998) Cancer terminated the life of Dieter Kienast, the Swiss landscape designer who aspired to organize nature’s chaos with geometry. Born in Zurich, Kienast studied gardening and later landscape architecture at the University of Kassel. Betw
(1912-1998) One of the most charming figures of recent French architecture, André Bruyère, died on Easter Sunday. Born in Orleans, son and grandson of engineers, and nephew of Richard Bloch and Pierre Abraham, the communist intellectual founders of
(1949-1998) The French studio of Decq and Cornette will continue using the same name despite the loss of one of the partners, Benoît Cornette, who died in a traffic accident on 15 November. Originally qualified as a doctor, Cornette later studied ar
(1959-1998) Andreas Hild and Tillmann Kaltwasser met while studying architecture in Munich, where in 1992 they initiated the professional relationship which has been interrupted by the premature death in June of Tillmann Kaltwasser. In this short le
Balance del año
Summary of the Year
Luis Fernández-Galiano
Memorias y mudanzas
Memories and Mutations
Luis Fernández-Galiano
Figuras de interior: la España del 98
Interior Figures: the Spain of 98
De Gaudí a Moneo: un siglo de España
From Gaudí to Moneo: a Century of Spain
Luis Fernández-Galiano & Adela García-Herrera
1998, una antología emergente
1998, an Emergent Anthology
Tradiciones renovadas
Renovated Traditions
Ampliación del Ayuntamiento, Murcia Town Hall Extension, Murcia
Rafael Moneo
Ayuntamiento, Vilaseca (Tarragona) Town Hall, Vilaseca (Tarragona)
Josep Llinás
Instituto Hispano-Luso, Zamora Spanish-Portuguese Institute, Zamora
Manuel de las Casas
Centro cívico Montehermoso, Vitoria Montehermoso Civic Center, Vitoria
Roberto Ercilla, Miguel Ángel Campo & Juan Adrián Bueno
Colectivo singular
Singular Collective
Biblioteca pública, Sevilla Public Library, Seville
Antonio Cruz & Antonio Ortiz
Biblioteca del Nou Campus, Valencia Nou Campus Library, Valencia
Giorgio Grassi
Palacio de congresos, Valencia Convention Center, Valencia
Norman Foster
Auditorio y palacio de congresos, Bilbao Auditorium and Convention Center, Bilbao
Federico Soriano & Dolores Palacios
Trazas universitarias
University Outlines
Instituto de investigación, León Research Institute, León
Javier Fresneda & Javier Sanjuán
Museo Universitario, Alicante University Museum, Alicante
Alfredo Payá
Rectorado de la Universidad, Alicante University Rector’s Office, Alicante
Álvaro Siza
Ampliación del Rectorado Universitario, Vigo Extension to Rector’s Office, Vigo
Fuensanta Nieto & Enrique Sobejano
Tipos formativos
Formative Types
Guardería infantil, Sondica (Vizcaya) Nursery School, Sondica (Vizcaya)
Eduardo Arroyo
Instituto de enseñanza media, Oliana (Lérida) Secondary School, Oliana (Lérida)
Ramón Fité & Julio Mejón
Piscina cubierta, San Fernando (Madrid) Indoor Swimming Pool, San Fernando (Madrid)
Luis Moreno Mansilla & Emilio Tuñón
Piscinas al aire libre, La Coruña Outdoor Swimming Pools, La Coruña
Carlos Quintáns, Antonio Raya & Cristóbal Crespo
Transporte e industria
Transport and Industry
Estación de autobuses, Córdoba Bus Station, Córdoba
César Portela
Estación intermodal, Bilbao Inter-line Railway Station, Bilbao
Gloria Iriarte, Eduardo Múgica & Agustín de la Brena
Centro de servicios, Figueras (Gerona) Infrastructural Services Center, Figueras (Gerona)
Carlos Ferrater & Joan Guibernau
Centro empresarial, Inca (Mallorca) Business Center, Inca (Mallorca)
Alberto Campo Baeza
Domicilios
Abodes
Viviendas, Rubí de Bracamonte (Valladolid) Housing, Rubí de Bracamonte (Valladolid)
Grijalba, Grijalba, Gil, Carazo & Ruiz
Conjunto mixto, Barcelona Mixed Development, Barcelona
Jaume Bach & Gabriel Mora
Bloque residencial, Santa Marta (Salamanca) Residential Block, Santa Marta (Salamanca)
Jesús Aparicio
Apartamentos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife Apartments, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Fernando Martín Menis
Un año en el mundo
A Year in the World
Luis Fernández-Galiano
El mundo de Truman
Truman’s World
Luis Fernández-Galiano
Doce meses y cuatro estaciones
Twelve Months and Four Seasons
El año en doce edificios
The Year in Twelve Buildings
Adela García-Herrera
Los premios y las pérdidas
Distinctions and Disappearances
Luis Fernández-Galiano
It was to be a year of commemorations, but ended up as one of commotions. Hurricane Mitch in Central America and economic catastrophe in Russia mark the dramatic profile of a year that had its comedy of manners in the White House and a summer jolt in the stock exchange roller coaster, while the sentence of British lords against Pinochet raised hopes for globalized justice in a world that has begun to cauterize open wounds in Palestine, Ireland and the Basque Country. Nevertheless, neither meteorological nor political turbulences prevented architects, poets, regenerationists and revisionists from celebrating the centenaries of Alvar Aalto, García Lorca, ‘98 and Philip II. The carrousel of festivities began in Stockholm, incumbent cultural capital, with Rafael Moneo’s museum. It continued at the Lisbon Expo with the pavilion designed by Álvaro Siza, who also capped Japan’s Praemium Imperiale on the year of Portuguese literature’s first Nobel, José Saramago. There was a moment of multicultural media fervor in Paris on account of the World Cup, staged in the stadium built by MRZC. And the party culminated in a Berlin that reinvents itself to assume German and European leadership. If the architectural year were to be summed up in a telegram, each season would start with a capital letter: winter would belong to Aalto; spring and summer, to Renzo Piano and Peter Zumthor, winners of the two most coveted awards, the Pritzker and the Carlsberg; and autumn to a red-green Berlin that struggles with the burden of memory.
A Nordic Winter
Winter nights whitened in remembrance of the great Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, the centenary of whose birth was celebrated in February through a major exhibition at New York’s MoMA. But winter also witnessed the opening of two new art institutions in Scandinavian capitals: the Museum of Modern Art and Architecture in Stockholm, a work of the Spanish Rafael Moneo on Skeppsholmen Island whose pyramidal skylights emblematized the city’s turn as European culture capital; and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, built by the American Steven Holl beside the Finnish master’s Finlandia Hall, and whose warped shapes invited both praise and controversy.
The Spring of Technology
The awarding of the Pritzker Prize to the Genoese Renzo Piano in the month of April was an acknowledgment of technological imagination on the part of a prestigious foundation that had always given preference to more explicitly artistic or intellectual careers. In the course of the year the Italian architect also completed France’s last presidential grand projet, the Kanak cultural center in New Caledonia, demonstrating the same vitality that characterizes those colleagues of his who share an engineering-oriented passion for the large scale: the French Jean Nouvel, who returned to the foreground of architectural debate with a monumental convention center on the banks of Lake Lucerne; the British Norman Foster, who finished the colossal airport of Chek-Lap-Kok in Hong Kong; and the Valencian Santiago Calatrava, who terminated the sculptural Orient Station close to Lisbon’s Expo. Foster and Calatrava, incidentally, have often crossed paths, and this year it was in the hometown of the latter, where the first has carried out a congress center and the second continues the construction of the spectacular City of Sciences.
Summer in the Alps
The Swiss Peter Zumthor received the Carlsberg Prize early in September, and the significant amount accompanying this generous distinction served to popularize a cult architect who practices his craft in a remote Alpine valley with artisan refinement and musical elegance. The author of the Thermal Baths of Vals and the Kunsthaus of Bregenz is but the most veteran of an entire Helvetian generation that has made of matter its artistic religion, and whose most cosmopolitan representatives are the Basel-based Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. Previously victors in the competition for London’s new Tate Gallery and finalists for the extension of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the partners have now won their first Spanish commission, the refurbishing of the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The year also saw the completion of their first American work, an extraordinary prism of basaltic stones in steel baskets containing a winery in California’s Napa Valley.
Autumn in Berlin
The closing season of the year began with German elections, which as usual were a plebiscite on both the future and the past, two tenses which overlap in Berlin’s troubled present. What prevailed was the social democrat option, which, in tune with other European ‘third ways’, prefer administration to remembrance, shirking the mortgage of ominous memories that end up being little more than theme parks of the Holocaust. Thus the capital of Germany continues to rise up, without respite or prejudices, and the termination of Piano’s brick tower or Moneo’s hotel and offices on Potsdamer Platz are minor anecdotes in a horizon that bristles with cranes and which only takes on a symbolic dimension in the Reichstag, where Foster has already laid the glass dome over the hall where the newly elected parliament is to convene.
Meanwhile, European architects remain fascinated by Dutch hypermodernity, a panorama of fertile innovations that contrasts with America’s commercial routine and Asia’s impasse. As a laboratory for experiments addressing density and congestion, however, it is of little relevance in geographical zones such as Latin America and the Islamic world, whose peculiar features were presented this year on Spanish territory through events like the Biennial of Ibero-American Architecture, held in Madrid, and the Aga Khan Awards, which were bestowed in Granada’s Alhambra. Halfway between these architectural landscapes, Spain has followed its course at cruising speed, randomly amalgamating the cosmopolitan and the traditional in a panorama that juxtaposes Enric Miralles’ brilliant triumph in the competition for the new Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh with Rafael Moneo’s eventual preponderance in the third round of the Prado Museum contest, and that it is as ready to accept Madrid’s futuristic project for underground highways, as Barcelona’s fervent campaign for the beatification of Antoni Gaudí. We will have to commend ourselves to the Catalan architect when he joins the ranks of saints.
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