With a prolific career spanning more than five decades, Rafael Moneo is considered a key figure in contemporary Spanish architecture, and his work has inspired several generations of architects around the world. Born in Tudela (Navarre) in 1937, the

Luis Fernández-Galiano   The intellectual influence of an engineer father and the Jesuits of Tudela forged the early personality of this native of Navarre who ran the bulls at the San Fermín festival while preparing for admission into the Madrid School of Architecture. There

Rafael Moneo   Spain   Javier Marquet, Javier Unzurrunzaga, and Luis María Zulaica invited the architect to join their team in working on the project for an apartment building within a closed block to go up on the plot of the Urumea jai alai court in San Sebastián. This me

Rafael Moneo, Ramón Bescós   Spain   The bankinter headquarters go up by the palace of the Marquis of Mudela, a work of the architect Álvarez Capra, and it is the first case, in the process of transformation of the Paseo de la Castellana, where the building volume permitted by regulatio

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The plot that the City Council had reserved for its new hall was that of the former barracks of Alfonso XII, raised – in part at least – on the grounds of the old convent of the Carmelites. It would have been hard to find a more appropriate site in L

Rafael Moneo   Spain   After several enlargements since its construction in 1891, the Bank of Spain called a competition in 1978 for the design of the last piece to wrap up its monumental headquarters. At that time the winning project was denied the license from the City C

Rafael Moneo   Spain   Mérida, the old colony of Emerita Augusta, is an inexhaustible quarry of remains from its glorious past, and even more so since the Renaissance, when the interest in classical antiquity bloomed. The purpose of the first Roman Museum in the city, set

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The bank of Spain branches are somewhat like fortresses, or, so to speak, peculiar safes facilitating the movement of that singular type of fluid called money. Guided by a strict program describing the operations of the branch with extreme precision,

Rafael Moneo   Spain   This new branch of the insurance company Previsión Española sought to blend into the architectural tradition of Seville, but without making a fuss. The idea was to respect the surrounding city, integrating the building into its scheme and adjusting i

Rafael Moneo   Spain   In 1983, an invitational competition was called to enlarge Atocha Station, which meant demolishing the Carlos I overpass, as well as the extension and remodeling of the historical roof, the creation of a local commuter train station, the construction

Rafael Moneo   Spain   With remarkable insistence, airport architecture has, almost ever since the beginnings of aviation, tried to get as close as possible to the always sophisticated industrial world of aeronautics through buildings formally alluding to it. Experience ha

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The smooth slope of the almond yard where the Foundation is situated, somewhere between the painter’s studio – a work by the architect Josep Lluís Sert – and the road running along the lowest part of the property, keeps the new building from spreadin

Rafael Moneo, Manuel de Solà-Morales   Spain   In the year 1986, the architects Rafael Moneo and Manuel de Solà-Morales won an invitational competition for a complex urban program on a wide trapezoidal site located between Avinguda Diagonal and Carrer Déu i Mata, on the one hand, and Numància and

Rafael Moneo   Spain   In a marginal area of Barcelona, where the Eixample (19th century urban extension) begins to fray, a large, imprecisely shaped plot of land reduced a possible dialogue with the place to a succinct soliloquy. The parcel was the result of the fusion of

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The Villahermosa Palace was built in the 18th century, and in 1771 ownership was transferred to the Duke of Villahermosa, who commissioned reforms to several architects, though finally Antonio López Aguado took charge. After the Spanish War of Indepe

Rafael Moneo   United States   Following a long selection process, the Davis Museum was Moneo’s first commission outside Spain. It was received with great joy because, having decided to return to Madrid after five years as chairman of architecture at Harvard, Moneo would be able t

Rafael Moneo   Spain   San sebastián has always been dominated by the extraordinary features of its geography, but in many ways owes its current physiognomy to the coast wall that led to the construction of the Zurriola quarter in 1919. An exceptional spot in this new are

Rafael Moneo   Sweden   Skeppsholmen island used to be the headquarters of the Swedish navy, and, as such, it was a parallel city, autonomous, with all the resources necessary to carry out its mission: shipyards, barracks, munitions dumps, hospitals, churches, workshops, gy

Rafael Moneo   Spain   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

Rafael Moneo   Spain   A finales de los años ochenta, la familia Chivite compró la finca conocida como Señorío de Arínzano, situada en el término municipal de Aberín, merindad de Estella. El Señorío se extiende en torno a los meandros que en aquellos parajes describe el rí

Rafael Moneo   United States   The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston was built in 1924, a Neoclassical construction by William Ward Watkin. Mies van der Rohe extended it for the first time in 1958 and again in 1974. Mies’s architecture has prevailed and the modest, dignified architec

Rafael Moneo   United States   Planning to give Los Angeles a new Catholic cathedral, Cardinal Roger Mahoney asked Santiago Calatrava, Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Robert Venturi/Denise Scott Brown, and Rafael Moneo to present ideas for a garden/sanctuary in memory of Friar Junípero S

Rafael Moneo   Lebanon   Four years after an international competition that failed to lead to a final proposal, Solidère – the entity responsible for the recovery and revitalization of the center of Beirut, which suffered damage during the civil war – offered the studio, in

Rafael Moneo, José María de la Mata   Spain   Part of the Gregorio Marañón hospital complex, the new maternity ward takes up one of the blocks developed within the 19th century Plan Castro, east of Retiro Park. The building is inserted in a larger urban operation that links three blocks parallel

Rafael Moneo   Spain   Convinced that painting a landscape is a way of making space one’s own, José Beulas, a genuine representative of Huesca painting, dedicated most of his life to reflecting the sobriety of Aragón’s countryside on canvas. This landscape becomes the most

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The project for the extension of the Prado Museum must be understood as a new chapter of its already long life. A chapter that considers the impact on the Museum of the occupation of a new site containing the Jerónimos Cloister, the perimeter surroun

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The discovery of the ruins of the Roman Theater of Cartagena unveiled an exceptional monument, making it hard to understand how, given the scale of the ensemble, it remained concealed for centuries. The use of a section of the stage as a market durin

Rafael Moneo   United States   The laboratory for Integrated Science and Engineering (LISE) was the answer to a necessary extension for the Department of Physics at Harvard University. The brief called for 3,000 square meters of free space, 1,400 square meters for high-performance

Rafael Moneo   United States   Located on the historic College Hill, the RISD campus is scattered, which underscores the quality of the buildings while boosting urban life. The plot for Chace Center was located in the area around Memorial Hall, where the domestic character of Bene

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The Aragonia Complex was designed with a clear objective: to create a social hub in a densely populated area of Zaragoza, and to do so not through a monumental affirmation, but through an architecture that speaks of the richness and diversity of soci

Martínez Lapeña & Elías Torres, Rafael Moneo   Spain   The building goes up on a triangular plot, next to the Vapor Sampere building, which is one of the most important examples of industrial architecture in the city of Sabadell, and was built at the beginning of the 20th century to provide energy to the

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The El Greco Convention Center of Toledo is accessed through a small square located next to Calle de las Armas, and which leads to Plaza de Zocodover. This square offers broad, impressive views over Tavera Hospital and the Tagus River. The building

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The buildings of Deusto University have always played a leading role in the shaping of the left bank of the river estuary, testifying in this way to the institution’s commitment to serve the city. For over one hundred years, Deusto has been not only

Rafael Moneo   Spain   After the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the Church of Riberas de Loyola – promoted by the bishop of Donostia-San Sebastián in the new neighborhood under development along the meander of the Urumea River – was a new experience in the field of r

Rafael Moneo, Lucho Marcial   Spain   The construction of Mercer Hotel, located in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, tried not to disregard structural elements, and to demolish without damaging the remains of the past. The main idea behind the project was to recover the spatial character

Rafael Moneo   Switzerland   This laboratory building is located on the Novartis Campus in Basel, which can be described as a miniature Manhattan with a diverse series of buildings – each with a different function – designed by different architects to promote diversity in the co

Rafael Moneo, Belén Moneo, Jeffrey Brock   United States   The plot on which these laboratories are located was the last one available at Columbia University’s Morningside campus, and therefore the new gateway to the campus from its Manhattanville expansion. From the start it was decided that the new buildin

Rafael Moneo, GCA Architects   Spain   In an area where other towers of similar height go up, the new headquarters of Grupo Puig goes up in Plaza Europa, midway between El Prat Airport and the city. The tower complies with the urban codes regarding floor plans and height. The purpose that

Rafael Moneo   United States   The complex comprises interconnected spaces for neuroscience and psychology. A solution might have been to break up the complex into pavilions. Instead, the program presents two sections sharing a large entrance foyer, which encourages contact and co

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The project for the new Museum University of Navarre started out with the donation of the art collection of María Josefa Huarte – daughter of the Navarrese entrepreneur Félix Huarte Goñi –, who promoted the construction of a center to display these w

Rafael Moneo, Clara Moneo, Valerio Canals   Spain   The Descendientes de J. Palacios Winery was located in the town of Villafranca del Bierzo. Its facilities were spread in different structures and warehouses, so it became necessary to reconfigure and gather them all in one building. The desire to ble

Rafael Moneo, Mathias Schütte   Germany   In 2005, the Berlin city council called a competition to define the massing and set the guidelines for a block bordered by Schinkelplatz, Strasse an der Kommandantur, Niederlagstrasse, and the small square shaped by two Schinkel projects: on one hand

Rafael Moneo   Spain   Few Spanish cities are so directly identified with a single monument as Córdoba is. And that is why the appeal of this project comes precisely from its proximity to the Mosque. Moreover, the choice of site is fortunate because, while the Mosque is th

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The proposal strictly observes the competition brief, on the understanding that it calls for the ‘extension and refurbishment of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum’ and not for a new museum. The first step was therefore to assess the current location, which

Rafael Moneo   In the past, reason made it possible to build. Only that which was grounded on reason could be built, and perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that the history of architecture has been written from the springboard of reason. Things have changed, howe