We are at the threshold of something, but do not know what exactly. Ortega y Gasset’s diagnosis – “We do not know what is happening to us, and this is precisely what is happening to us” – also applies to the current moment of transition between decad
Ice cracks, and so does our future. The polar regions control the planet’s weather system, and the gradual loss of marine or glacial ice is altering significantly the global dynamics of climate. To the lower reflection of solar radiation we must add
We are tourists, and pretend being travelers. Mass tourism used to be depicted with a cruise ship overwhelming the delicate scale of Venetian palazzos, but today the best representation of excess is the exceptional photograph of a jam on the Everest.
City air makes us free; city air kills us; and city air saves us. Urban humanity lived a drama in three acts: the bourgeois revolution ended feudal or class servitude, because as the medieval German saying goes, Stadtluft macht frei; the industrial r
We call it Earth, but we could have named it Water. More than two thirds of our planet is covered by oceans, which interact with the earth’s biosphere and the atmosphere to influence climate and intervene in the carbon cycle. The widespread use of fo
The competition brief that set the guidelines for this project called for a generic container whose interiors would remain throughout the year at temperatures between 18 and 25 degrees Celsius. The proposal involved modifying the initial planning, ma
The second phase of the Helga de Alvear Museum of Contemporary Art aims to create an efficient and versatile cultural hub with a clear and balanced image. A simple and recognizable volume, from a formal and structural point of view, that establishes
Since its birth in 1878, the Can Batlló compound and La Bordeta quarter share a long history of growth and transformation with Barcelona. The city’s industrial heyday saw the complex expand and new buildings rise. Over time, however, these fell into
The center for the elderly is located on an island of municipal facilities, next to a nursery and a civic center at the foot of Palaudàries highway. It has a single floor of 490 square meters, including a main hall with access from the road and a lar
The project for the CMCiB Building (Comparative Medicine and Bioimage Center) seeks addressing complex technical and functional issues in a way that is sustainable and sensitive to context and achieves high comfort levels (visual, hygrothermal, and a
Located at Plaza de Cruces in Baracaldo, this new-build construction harbors laboratories and animal research facilities of the Biocruces Institute. The project drawn up by Idom under the direction of Gonzalo Carro presents eight floors, three of whi
Designed by Benedetta Tagliabue and Joan Callís of the Catalan firm Miralles Tagliabue EMBT, this pavilion in Barcelona stands beside the Santa Creu i Sant Pau Hospital, a work of Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The building is part of an international ne
The project converts three industrial buildings, into a Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Center. The three warehouses, with corridor parallel to the street, were built in the early 20th century with solid brick perimeter walls, cast iron pillars
The new high school is located on a plot at the edge of the housing area of the Aimerigues sector, on the threshold of future city growth and an area of parks bound by Icaria street. The implementation is defined by the location of the volumes within
The proximity of a highway, though slightly burrowed, conditions the project from the beginning. An acoustic cushion formed by an earth mound materializes the first part of the project, becoming a forest of pine trees that emulates others in the area
The building completes the Campus of the University of Valladolid in Segovia – where phase I was finished in 2011 –, rounding off the program with specific classrooms for the degrees offered on campus, offices, and two auditoriums (main auditorium a
On an elongated plot parallel to the Avenida de las Universidades, in Dos Hermanas, Seville, the new campus is, along with that of Córdoba, the second largest of Loyola University in Seville. Because of very extreme temperatures in the region, the p
Edward Balcells, Ignasi Rius, and Daniel Tigges worked together on this new building housing the kindergarten and the communal spaces of El Til-ler, a Waldorf-Steiner school in Bellaterra, in the Catalonian municipality of Sardañola del Vallés. Arran
Located some 36 kilometers from the capital of the province, and 22 kilometers from Santiago de Compostela, the municipality of A Estrada is surrounded by the green landscape of the Ulla, Vea, and Tabeirós river valleys. With a population of almost 2
The Hermanas Hospitalarias del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (Sisters Hospitallers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) is a female catholic congregation founded by the Italian priest Benito Menni (1841-1914) in the municipality of Ciempozuelos (Madrid), and who
The Germina Foundation is a non-profit institution dedicated to integration and complementary learning experiences for children at risk of social exclusion. Since its creation in the year 2004, the institution has grown and extended its activity, and
The classics believed that places have memory, and that their own character is custodied by a protecting spirit, the ‘genius loci.’ The Vallehermoso Athletics Stadium in Madrid is an example, a place that has gone through many phases. It was here, in
Anna Noguera and José Javier Fernández Ponce carried out this project that involved building a new multisport center for Barcelona’s Turó de la Peira neighborhood and fitting out the interior of one of its city blocks. The facilities are housed in a
In the parish church of Campañó, on the outskirts of Pontevedra, the project set out to improve the existing football field – made of rammed earth and with dressing rooms in urgent need of repair – with a new layer of artificial turf and adding new
Located some ten kilometers east of A Coruña, Oleiros has grown significantly over the last twenty years, and what was once a rural municipality has become a residential one where many of the families with the highest incomes in the area live, so it
The old textile complex is being recovered to join the Barcelona Art Factories network, adding 28,000 m² of public space and, for the first time in this type of intervention, of social housing. Built in 1905 to store thread, the warehouse is 1
The idea of raising this apartment block came after four friends, with ages between 55 and 65 and living in Lucerne, decided to build a second residence in which to spend periods of time and also with sights set on retiring in Barcelona, a city they
This is a project that appears on the seashore, near a preexistence of a protected smokestack from the beginning of the 20th century, that informs us of the industrial activity in that area, at that time the industrial outskirts of Málaga. Pairs of i
Lagasca 99 is a residential building located on an isolated plot in the Salamanca district of Madrid. As in many other projects, the facades are set out as a consistent reflection of the interior spaces of the building, at least of its floor plan, bu
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects Perhaps to compensate for the demolition in 2014 of what was, up to that moment, the architects’ masterpiece – the American Folk Art Museum of New York –, in 2019 the Praemium Imperiale recognized the career of Wi
Kenneth Frampton The famed British critic and historian Kenneth Frampton won the Soane Medal, given by the Sir John Soane Museum in London in recognition of the work of people that, through their profession, education, history, and theory “have manag
Arata Isozaki The Hyatt Foundation gave the Pritzker Prize in 2019 to Arata Isozaki, master of Japanese architecture and bridge between West and East. Born in 1941, Isozaki studied at the University of Tokyo, where he met Kenzo Tange, who was a ke
Richard Rogers The American Institute of Architects (AIA) gave its Gold Medal to Richard Rogers, whose buildings the jury commended “for their detailing rigor, extreme flexibility, and technology-driven sustainability,” and which resonate with “the f
Norwich Council Houses Given each year by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Stirling Prize distinguishes the best works built by British architects or studios in the European Union. In 2019 the award went to the council houses on
Grafton Architects The Gold Medal of the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) is the maximum distinction that can be given to a professional in the field in the United Kingdom, and it went to Grafton Architects, the office led by Yvonne Farr
Álvaro Siza Undisputed master of contemporary architecture, Álvaro Siza has already received all the most important awards – the Pritzker among them, in the year 1992 –, but he was probably especially happy to receive from his Iberian colleagues th
Alberto Campo Baeza In October, the Spanish Association of Architecture Institutes (CSCAE) gave its most important award, the Gold Medal, to Alberto Campo Baeza, one of the most prominent architects in Spain and also one the country’s most influentia
Mendes da Rocha / Gironès It is perhaps a sympton of the times that the latest editions of large architecture biennials have clearly had a political agenda or, at least, a marked social and ecological sensibility. This was the case also of the 11th
Several Works Just like any other cliché, the one that links the architecture of the Islamic world with the mere repetition of traditional styles like the Alhambra or with the ostentation of glass skyscrapers in the desert as in Dubai, seems charica
Instituto Playa Flamenca Presided in its edition of 2019 by Fuensanta Nieto, the FAD Award in the category of Architecture went to the IES Playa Flamenca in Orihuela (Alicante), by Alfredo Payá. The jury highlighted how the design addresses a large a
530 Dwellings in Bordeaux Refurbishing the collective housing constructions built during the boom of the 1950s and 1960s is one of the main problems in European cities. A problem that, faced with common sense and talent, can lead to projects that are
1931-2019 One of the main representatives of Italian design, Alessandro Mendini passed away on 18 February 2019, at the age of 87. Born in Milan, Mendini graduated from the city’s Politecnico, and soon he joined cutting edge groups that, in the 1960s
1917-2019 Born in Saginaw, Michigan (US), on 24 May 1917, Florence Knoll Bassett – maiden name Schust – died on 25 January 2019 at the patriarchal age of 101 years. Her long career, with designs ranging from objects to corporate projects, cannot be e
1926-2019 César Pelli passed away in New Haven on 19 July. One of the most important professionals in the field of corporate architecture. Born to a humble family of San Miguel de Tucumán, Pelli was the quintessential self-made architect: after gradu
1922-2019 Master of contemporary architecture in the United States, Kevin Roche passed away on 1 March, at 96. He was born in Dublin, and graduated at the city’s university, but in 1948 he left home to study at the Illinois Institute of Technology wi
1941-2019 Coauthor of the ‘Continuous Movement,’ one the most influential architectural visions of the second half of the 20th century, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia died on 30 July at the age of 78. Son of the physicist and philospher Giuliano Torald
1930-2019 Stanley Tigerman passed away on 3 June in his native city, Chicago. He was a born into a Jewish family that fostered a love for music and supported his desire to become an architect. After graduating at the MIT, Tigerman served in the Navy
1917-2019 Ieoh Ming Pei, Pritzker Prize 1983 and one of the most important architects of the second half of the 20th century, passed away on 16 May. He was 102 years old. Born into an aristocratic family of Canton, and raised in Hong Kong and Shangha
1953-2019 The architect and critic Manuel Graça Dias died in his home city of Lisbon on 24 March. Graduated in 1977 from the ESBAL of Lisbon, he started teaching at the schools of architecture of Lisbon and Porto, where he completed his PhD in 2009.
1924-2019 On 11 August, at 95 years of age, Juan Antonio García Solera passed away in Alicante, the city where he was born. He was one of the last living masters of the second modern generation: that of the professionals who started working in the Sp
1949-2019 The Madrid-born Carlos Hernández Pezzi passed away on 18 October in Málaga, his place of residence. Devoted professionally to urban planning – he was the Municipal Architect of Málaga and Fuengirola –, Hernández Pezzi understood architectur
1924-2019 Born on 23 June of 1924 in A Coruña, where he raised the majority of this buildings, Andrés Fernández-Albalat Lois died in the same city on 29 December 2019. An ETSAM graduate of 1956, his professional career started right at the beginning
1939-2019 Charles Jencks, one of the most controversial architectural historians and critics of the last forty years, passed away on 13 October in London. Born in Baltimore in 1939, he studied at Harvard University, English Literature first followed
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