Luis Fernández-Galiano   Cities are always palimpsests, and some buildings can also be described as such. Like medieval parchments, which were scraped so that they could be used again when the demand for writing surfaces exceeded the supply, city land is periodically cleared

Francisco de Gracia   Since the debates of modernity, the problem of how to build on the built has been an open theme of discussion, both with regard to the scale of buildings and in terms of the city.

BIG Bjarke Ingels Group   Denmark   El Museo Marítimo de Dinamarca se ha trasladado de un castillo a un dique seco que funciona ahora como un nuevo espacio urbano situado a ocho metros bajo el nivel del mar.

Hegger Hegger Schleiff / HHS Architekten   Germany   The thick walls of a World War II bunker now shelter public facilities and a plant for the production of energy by cogeneration that is to supply power to the surrounding district.

Lacaton & Vassal   France   The FRAC (Fond Régional d’Art Contemporain) centers contain the public contemporary art collections of the different regions of France. These collections are preserved, catalogued and publicly displayed through exhibitions or leases to galleries and

Domenico Fiore   Italy   Through an intervention that respects local techniques and materials, twelve caves have been transformed into as many rooms of a hotel that blends in with the surroundings.

MVN Arquitectos   Spain   Originally a silversmithing factory and then a furniture store, the building is now arranged around an atrium that serves to organize the program of the new Botín Foundation center in Madrid.

David Closes   Spain   Far from merely returning the building to its original state, this intervention on an old convent has preserved the scars of time and emphasized them with a contemporary language.

Léon Krier   Against archaeology of the kind that is based on a superstitious respect for the ruin, Krier advocates the scientific and evocative reconstruction of monuments of the past.

Mauricio Vicent   Curated by Elena Ochoa, the exhibition presents twelve contemporary photographers’ particular takes on the city that inspired the painter.

Llátzer Moix   At the ICO Museum in Madrid, ‘The Architect is Present’ documents the exemplary work carried out by five practices in contexts of extreme scarcity.

Eduardo Prieto   Some architects are able to build with words. Others are suspicious of them, believing that the best platforms are buildings. This is the opinion of Peter Zumthor, a master of few words but reader of Handke and Berger, admirer of Beuys, and lover of

Carlos Sambricio   In 1936 the minister Capanema asked Lucio Costa to design a Ministry of Education and Health building for Rio de Janeiro. Costa drew up a proposal in tune with similar ideas put down shortly before in Europe. This project, understood to be the starti

Daniel Dávila   Critics never marvel; they look, analyze, and classify. As Samir Younés explains, there are three types of criteria for making architectural judgments. Intrinsic criteria are directly related to ‘architectural theory’, while external ones involve a c

Iñaki Bergera   This first detailed study focussed on the modern master’s work as a photographer complements what Le Corbusier and the Power of Photography (2012) addressed in a general way. Tim Benton’s research demonstrates how, in spite of Le Corbusier’s contrad

F. Javier López Rivera   It might first seem like another illustrated book or photo book. Suffice it to recall the visual panoramas published by Alberto Sartoris or the national examples of fotoscops, a work of the Prats-Gomis-Sert (1967–72). The publication is produced wit

Eduardo de Miguel   Last February, two major international events connected to the industrial sector of ceramic claddings took place. First was CEVISAMA, the International Exhibition of Ceramics for Architecture, held yearly in Valencia for manufacturers to present thei

Périphériques Architects   France   Located in Paris, this apartment building facing two intersecting roads – Rue Frémicourt and Boulevard de Grenelle – has some gardens adjacent to it, and is organized in such a way that the two blocks – one providing social housing and the other priv

DSDHA   United Kingdom   The facade of this building that serves as a branch of Bosideng – a Chinese chain of clothing stores with more than 4,000 outlets spread all over the world – seeks to present a variable image, depending on the observer’s point of view and weather con

Pol Femenias   Spain   A winner of the ASCER Award, the intervention involved a self-supporting party wall lattice formed by combining four modularized pieces of enameled ceramic fired at a high temperature.

O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects, Sheila O’Donnell, John Tuomey   United Kingdom   The London School of Economics takes up several buildings in a central area of the British capital. Aiming to gather all the services for students under one same roof, the school called a competition in 2009 to build a student hub with an auditorium,

Juan Beldarraín   Spain   To maximize flexibility in the interior spaces, the structure of this university building conceived upon sustainable strategies – it will be the first educational facility to obtain LEED certification – is pushed to the facade. Arranged at intervals

Rural Urban Framework RUF   China   The traditional Chinese courtyard is the typological motif in which the house is inspired. Following the vernacular, the construction is based on massive adobe and brick walls showing subtle patterns on some sides.

Archea Associati   China   The lattice of this building awarded with the Gold LEED certification is formed by large panels of white-enameled ceramic pieces, fastened to a frame, which can be opened at certain spots to let in light and air.  

The past disappears, but fragments can remain in the form of testimonies of its protagonists. This is exactly the purpose – especially commendable in a forgetful country like Spain – of the Arquia Foundation, which recently presented at the San Ferna

Shigeru Ban (Tokyo, 1957) has been building cardboard castles for two decades. His winning the Pritzker Prize just days before the commemoration of the Rwanda genocide seemed like a significant coincidence because it was precisely in the year 1994 th

The National Archaeological Museum of Spain in Madrid gave the image of an immense old house with an interior space that had lost all charm and character after successive renovations. Officially opened on 1 April, finally, the new MAN has gained back

The competition for the Spanish Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015 already has a winner. The Barcelona-based firm B720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos has been selected out of a total of thirty-one participants for an entry whose title, ‘The Language of Taste’,

Recycling large-scale urban infrastructures for the purpose of giving them a second life is nothing new. There are many projects that have turned energy distribution or transport networks into altogether new urban spaces. Most of them, however, have

Some people thought that with the outbreak of the real estate crisis and the end of large-scale public investment, Spain’s leading companies in the construction sector would go under. They were wrong. Though in fact still heavily in debt, not one of

César Rendueles   In ‘Specters of Marx’, Derrida upheld the political role of “a radical and interminable, infinite … critique … open to the absolute future of what is coming; that is, a necessary indeterminate, abstract, desert-like experience.” Whenever I read this