Luis Fernández-Galiano   In 1996 our sister magazine AV devoted an issue to the Prado Museum extension competition, to which almost 500 international teams concurred, and that was disappointingly settled without a winner. The issue featured the ten shortlisted proposals, twe

Luis Fernández-Galiano   The Prado Museum’s appropriation of the Hall of Realms is the next chapter of a story that goes from the Natural History Museum by Juan de Villanueva to the current campus. 

Making the symbolic Hall of Realms part of the Prado Museum will not only give the institution more exhibition galleries, but also create new urban and civic spaces fot the city as a whole. 

Foster + Partners, Rubio Arquitectura   Spain   The roof and body of the 19th-century building are removed in favor of a large hall in the attic and an atrium linked to a new square to be executed wih a portico of bronze pillars or by taking advantage of existing pillars. Resolving the new atrium

b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, David Chipperfield Architects   Spain   Large pillars and beams of reinforced concrete that follow the modular composition of the old facade form a loggia on the south wing of the building, the ground level of which contains a small reception area.

Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos   Spain   The new element is incrusted between the south facade’s two projections and contains reception and circulation areas, creating an atrium connected to the Hall of Realms and, on the other side, opening to views.

Javier Feduchi, Garcés - de Seta - Bonet | arquitectes   Spain   To connect the building to the Casón del Buen Retiro without tampering with existing accesses, a ramp from Calle Felipe IV is created. All circulation elements are placed in a vertical atrium set along the south facade.    

Gluckman Tang, Enguita & Lasso de la Vega, Álvarez Sala   Spain   Access is from street level, crossing a permeable membrane that encloses an atrium which agglutinates the reception area and circulation elements. An exhibition hall up in the attic completes the proposal.

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos   Spain   The central piece, a 19th-century addition, is eliminated and replace with a volume of rigorous geometry held up by plinth that opens to the public and communicates with it through a triptych for posters.

OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture   Spain   Centered on making the interiors a historical and material collage, the project leaves the facade practically intact. The exception is the south wing, which is perforated so that large swing windows can be installed.

Carlos de Riaño, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Juan Miguel Hernández León   Spain   The mansard roof and the south wing, added in the 19th century, are replaced by a slightly sloping roof and a low construction, aligned with the square, which has the same height and materials as the existing building’s plinth.

Peter Buchanan   An ambitious exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London takes stock of the contradictory golden years of counterculture. 

Estrella de Diego   With a major show full of shocking images, Barcelona‘s CCCB addressed architecture‘s all too often silenced relationship with eroticism and sex. 

Eduardo Prieto   One of the least controversial decisions of President Obama was to allocate 3 billion dollars to the creation of what was considered the philosopher’s stone of neuroscience: the map of the brain activity of our species. Such mapping, potentially as i

Carles Enrich   Spain   Located on the banks of the river Llobregat, Gironella is a Catalonian municipality split in two: on one side of the river is the town’s gridded extension; on the other is the historical core, perched on a hill, which for accessibility reasons has be

Tropical Space   Vietnam   This building is located next to the river Thu Bon, in the Dien Ban district of Vietnam’s Quang Nam Province. Named Terra Cotta Studio, it was built as a workshop for the eminent local artist Le Duc Ha, and presents itself as a box measuring 7 cubic

kleyer.koblitz.letzel.freivogel   Germany   Located in the heart of Berlin, the new headquarters of the National Metrology Institute of Germany harbors a very diverse program – including workshops, labs, storage and training rooms –, but on the outside it presents a highly compact and restrain

Herzog & de Meuron   Germany   Hidden under a sawtooth factory building, the Vitra Design Museum collection, ranked among the most important holdings of furniture design worldwide, has never been on permanent display to the public. The Schaudepot has the appearance of an industria

marte.marte architects   Australia   On a hill, at the edge of a forest and on the grounds of an imposing vernacular timber construction housing the Catholic Community of Sisters, in the Austrian municipality of Laterns, stands a white house of bold geometrical forms. Resembling an ice

The triumph of Trump was no less a surprise than Obama’s four years ago. That Americans have handed power to a foul-mouthed and potentially dangerous magnate is as unbelievable as was their electing a Kenyan Muslim’s son four years ago, even though h

One of the best Navarrese architects of the 20th century, author of icons built in the course of sixty years, died in Pamplona at the age of 87. Fernando Redón Huici earned his degree in 1957 and concentrated his career in the Navarre region, develop

The expressionist dream of the glass pavilion drawn by figures like Bruno Taut, Wenzel Hablik, or the Luckhardt brothers has had to wait a hundred years to come true, but at least it has come true in Germany, and big time. After a decade of construct

We can now again visit the Design Museum of London, at its new location. The complex project has taken ten years to carry out in full, and in the virtual absence of public funding, this would probably not have been possible without the determination

The Network of Latin American Architecture Biennials (Redbaal) has given its first Oscar Niemeyer Award (ON Prize) to El Lugar de la Memoria (The Place for Memory) in Lima (Perú), designed and executed by Barclay & Crousse. The award was instituted w

Attracting large numbers of people, the World Architecture Festival (WAF) is perhaps the largest event of global architecture. It was held for the first time in Barcelona in 2008, and since then, with the rather general objective of “celebrating and

Luis Fernández-Galiano   A once young real estate developer and lover of ostentation has surprised the world by making it to the White House with a populist discourse.