Luis Fernández-Galiano   Half a century ago, on 23 August 1966, the Lunar Orbiter 1 sent the space station of Robledo de Chavela, near Madrid, the first photograph of the Earth seen from the Moon, a black and white, still low-resolution image. Two years later, on 24 December

Luis Fernández-Galiano   The changes that humans have performed on the Earths crust have opened a new geological epoch, and the cities and landscapes of our own tiems reflect this historical mutation. 

Miguel Fernández-Galiano   Curated by a Spanish team, the triennale takes stock of the phenomenon of belonging, and of the ways of building the collective in a global world. 

Maite Báguena   Articulated by images, objects, and ideas rather than by buildings, the Lisbon Triennale questions the essence of architecture in the world today. 

Eduardo Prieto   Science tends to reward not the brave nor the powerful, but those who use their reason, putting the latter on pedestals, relegating the former to oblivion; an arbitrary scheme perfectly played out in the case of two 19th-century giants, Charles Darwi

Llátzer Moix   At the dawn of the 21st century, Santiago Calatrava Valls was a global celebrity. His name appeared attached to phrases like “prestigious Spanish architect who has been triumphing in the world.” True, the only Spaniard on the list of Pritzker winners

Rosa Urbano   The evolution of the glass envelope goes along with the evolution of architecture as one of the most representative components of contemporaneity, and is the architectural element that most significantly expresses the cultural values of society, and

Diller Scofidio + Renfro   United States   A continuous band of circulations and communal spaces rises along the south facade of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center, located in Washington Heights district, within the Columbia University Medical Center campus. The 14-story tower houses

OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture   Netherlands   Located in the center of Rotterdam, the Timmerhuis is a new building for the city hall that accommodates services, offices, residential units, shops, and parking. Attached to another municipal building from 1953, the new building adjusts to its neigh

MVRDV   Netherlands   Designed to house a flagship store on PC Hooftstraat – Amsterdam’s luxury brand street, which used to be mainly residential –, this building replaces two traditional houses, transforming their volume to increase the interior space and adapt it to ret

Anupama Kundoo    India   Located on the outskirts of the Indian city of Auroville, in an area much affected by environmental and social problems– from water scarcity to inadequate housing – this house designed by Anupama Kundoo is conceived as a laboratory for sustainable te

Instituted in the year 1977 and given by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), which the Spaniard Luis Monreal heads, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture has consolidated through the decades and become a benchmark not only for contemporary architect

Architecture parlante was an invention of French architects of the Enlightenment by which buildings explained their functions through their forms, tying up the rational with the expressive. From this arose projects of Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude

Felt during the Summer Olympic Games of 2006, the Greek crisis has been of such a magnitude as to make it seem frivolous to talk about its consequences it has had on architecture. But the crisis has indeed brought many architectural projects to a sto

The Valencian architect and academic Enrique Nuere has been given the 5th Rafael Manzano Prize, given by the Driehaus Foundation and coming with a prize of 50,000 euros, in recognition of his research and leadership in the recovery of traditional Spa

Soon after landing the Golden Lion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale and the Praemium Imperiale of Japan (see Arquitectura Viva 185 and 188), Paulo Mendes da Rocha has for 2017 won a no less prestigious award, the RIBA Gold Medal, given yearly

An architect of strong social commitments, Luis Miquel Suárez-Inclán, passed away in Madrid on 28 July. After graduating in 1957, Miquel traveled to Paris, where he discovered an alternative to the “humbug and hick” modernity of Francoist Madrid, and

The British historian and critic Peter Blundell-Jones died on 19 August. Though he attended the Architectural Association in the 1960s – marked by the utopian lyricism of Archigram – he felt no attachment to technocratic modern tradition. In fact hi

Felt during the Summer Olympic Games of 2006, the Greek crisis has been of such a magnitude as to make it seem frivolous to talk about its consequences it has had on architecture. But the crisis has indeed brought many architectural projects to a sto

Carlos Jiménez   When Peter Zumthor received the Pritzker Prize in 2009 in Buenos Aires, the United States ambassador to Argentina gave a reception in his honor. In the midst of the customary toasts, Zumthor thanked the ambassador and ended his remarks by commenting