Visitable until 13 October is the World Expo of Osaka, the Japanese city’s second. If in 1970 the future envisioned was one of steel and concrete, this time the fair is a sampling of sustainable construction that will leave no built legacy: the premi

Néstor Montenegro, Rocío Pina, Carmelo Rodríguez, Fernando Muñoz   The Island and the Ring Inaugurated last 13 April, the World Expo of 2025 is being held on the artificial island of Yumeshima, ‘Island of Dreams,’ a tract reclaimed from the sea on Osaka Bay that until recently was an infrastructural void, one which

Cut off from the world for three centuries, the Japan of the Edo period had to compensate for its prohibition of trade through ingenuity, and the scarcity of wood, cotton, and other goods gave rise to a solid culture of recycling that precluded any f

ENORME Studio, Extudio, Smart and Green Design   Japan   From the porticoed structure of red cedarwood to the colored ceramic pieces of the facade and interior finishes, all the materials are integrated into a circular system, collapsible and reusable. Like a dive into deep waters, a visitor ramp clad in d

Carlo Ratti, Coldefy   Japan   Like a grand opéra, the exhibition is divided into acts: the ceremonious entrance is followed by a sequence of thematic spaces that look over the ground floor, to which one returns after an interlude in the rear garden...

RAU Architects   Japan   The dome-like hall is enclosed with a skin of undulating metal louvers, which together cover exactly 425 meters, in commemoration of the 425 years of trade relations between the Netherlands and Japan...

Manuel Herz   Japan   In front of an auxiliary block clad in wood is a cluster of globes formed by two-layered thermoplastic pillows, which are inflated to ensure normal pressure inside and avoid the need for airlocks...

AMDL   Japan   The timber used in the structure of portal frames came from cypress forests in the vicinity, treated with a kind of tar that mixes persimmon pulp with pine charcoal to protect the material and give it a distinctive grayish tone...

Apropos Architects   Japan   While the central space for events is lit by a round skylight overhead, integrated into the passable roof, the uninterrupted gallery provides large surfaces for the display of Bohemian glass art...

Foster + Partners   Japan   The cluttered mesh of streets characteristic of Arabian cities has been reproduced by means of a computer model in order to optimize bioclimatic protection...

interplay   Japan   The snail-like geometry of the design allows a progression in the visitor’s experience of the interior, where a fluid public space culminates in an introspective concert hall located at the heart of the pavilion...

Lina Ghotmeh   Japan   Like the hull of a dhow – a type of boat of Arabian origin – the system of timber frames encloses a hold where a central atrium organizes the visitor and service areas, separated by semi-transparent textiles...

Kengo Kuma   Japan   A work of AMO, the exhibition design offers a journey through twelve locations along the Qatari coast, around a cinema lined with curtains that are an abstract recreation of the experience of taking shelter in a tent...

Atelier Brückner   Japan   From the roof’s intricate structure to the signage, the building is based on the geometrical patterns of a technique of scratching plaster – ganch carving – used in Central Asia to decorate palaces and temples...

Nikken Sekkei   Japan   Each panel is really a sandwich composed of two flat surfaces of four layers each, held up by an inner metal substructure onto which they are simply screwed to facilitate future dismantling and reuse...

Alberto Ballesteros, Enrique Morillo   The 19th Venice Architecture Biennale has sparked a considerable degree of interest, thanks to its innovative approach and its commitment to the cause of addressing today’s challenges. Does this mean anything to you? Is it not the description of all

Fulvio Irace   Just two days before the inauguration of the nineteenth Venice Architecture Biennale, the Milan Triennale kicked off its twenty-fourth Esposizione Internazionale, titled ‘Inequalities.’ Following ‘Broken Nature’ in 2019 and ‘Unknown Unknowns’ in 2022

Luis Fernández-Galiano   The philosopher Byung-Chul Han felt a strong need to be close to the earth, so for three years he worked in a garden which he called Bi-Won, Korean for ‘secret garden.’ For her part the architect Teresa Clara Martínez, after a year of exploring Zen g

Sergio Martín Blas   Architecture, like reading, is a matter of time. After more than forty years of work in the preservation and restoration of one of the most fascinating buildings in the history of architecture, Ruiz Cabrero publishes a compilation and revision of the

Iñaki Ábalos   Centered on the ups and downs of three great architects (Wright, Loos, Le Corbusier), Fernando Carrascal’s thesis-turned-book could at first prompt a certain aversion. But soon you enter a familiar world of attempts and failures, both professional an

Cuca Flores   From Zuazo, Palacios, or Gutiérrez Soto to Higueras, Peña Ganchegui, or Moneo, many of contemporary Spanish architecture’s greatest figures have come from Madrid’s School of Architecture. Much of our urban landscape bears the mark of ETSAM, which has

Francisco Mangado   The publisher Arquitectura Viva recently released a volume on Eduardo Souto de Moura, with a preface penned by Luis Fernández-Galiano and an introductory article by Kenneth Frampton. It is an exhaustive revision, counting as many as 340 pages, that g

Alberto Ballesteros   The Barcelona of the past is the one we look to for its exemplary city-making. But, as Oriol Bohigas wrote, the city is not people: the brilliant operations were those focused on public space, on facilities, on infrastructures; meanwhile, Barcelonian

Enrique Morillo   In an era of incessant confrontation – when misinformation, conflict and and polarization reign – public opinion barely even agrees on the challenges to address. But recent times have seen the spread of a certain unanimity on housing. We are stunned

Luis Fernández-Galiano   On May 7, 2025, ballet teacher Elna Matamoros joined the Royal Academy of Doctors of Spain, marking a pioneering incorporation of dance into the world of academia. In response to her inaugural speech, Luis Fernández-Galiano praised the dancer and cho

TEST   Spain   This prefabricated house presents a balloon-frame structure of eight modules, each measuring approximately 3x3x3 meters, and are clad in panels of texturized wood. It rises on pillars reinforced with sprayed concrete, joined by mechanical fixing elem

Donaire Milans Arquitectos   Spain   To reflect the richness of its collections better, the National Museum of Theater has become the National Museum of Performing Arts, a change of name that crowns a thorough upgrading of both its content and its container. The new building will no lon

h3o architects   Spain   Barcelona-based h3o architects – headed by Adrià Orriols, Joan Gener, and Miquel Ruiz – has transformed an abandoned parking lot in Castell d’Aro, in Girona province, into a public plaza. Covering 1,700 square meters, the intervention sought to revit

De arquitectos y papas

Although etymologically they are called upon to build bridges, the image of Roman pontiffs always comes with the rich treasure of edifices they ordered built in times when they were also sovereigns, for the greater glory of both God and their own rei

In all the facets of his life, Miguel de Oriol sought the skies – framing it in his buildings, scrutinizing it in his passion for birds, and pursuing heaven with his deep faith. As an architect, he produced a copious oeuvre in forms and types, where

With the passion for design that only a Milanese can have, Italo Rota lived his life entirely devoted to creating whatever he was asked to, whether furniture pieces, books, pavilions, or museums. And with equal relish he put together an impressive Wu

For the celebration of its tenth anniversary, in 1987 the Centre Pompidou invited Hans Hollein to show his work in the foyer, with a montage designed by himself. Now, with the idea of marking the museum’s closure for an exhaustive revamp set to last

Amid great anticipation, the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts – the first major event held in Paris since the Great War – opened on 28 April 1925, on a site between La Concorde and Les Invalides. Wanting to be among t

When in 1979 Paloma Chamorro interviewed Maruja Mallo, clearly the scandalous elderly woman was still the youngster who had ridden into church on a bicycle and walked across Madrid hatless. And as the Botín Centre’s retrospective on her work highligh

A decadent bourgeois for some, a transgressive libertine for others... no label can possibly encapsulate the overwhelming personality of Néstor Martín-Fernández de la Torre, or simply Néstor; a brilliant artist who – whether due to his defiance of al

There were many reservations about his use of a black-and-white aesthetic for shoots on environmental and humanitarian crises. Sebastião Salgado, however, did not conceive of photography as ornament, but as document; a medium through which to clearly

Prior to now, in the list of recipients of the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts, there was only one photographer, Sebastião Salgado, who earned it in a by now remote 1998 (Annie Leibovitz and James Nachtwey were awarded in the Communication an

Luis Fernández-Galiano   With the big blackout of 28 April, Spaniards had a Monday in the sun, using the title of a film that described the drama of unemployment as resigned idleness. The interruption of activity, transport, and even telecommunications awakened us to the fra