Israel, Palestine: October 7. As with other historic events, such as 9/11, the pandemic, or the Ukraine war, Arquitectura Viva has with a journalistic spirit sought to take stock of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which came to a head on 7 Oct

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Like Samson in his captivity, Israel is eyeless in Gaza. Captured and blinded, the Israeli hero regained his phenomenal strength to tear down the columns that held up the temple and make his enemies perish with him. The Biblical story inspired a poem

A second set of eight architects met at Arquia’s Madrid base to reflect on the state of the profession and outline its challenges for the future.

Benedetta Tagliabue   Hace muchos años tuve un amigo muy simpático al que, como a mí, le interesaba la arquitectura. Sostenía que para ser buen arquitecto se necesitaba, entre otras cosas, cierta dosis de estupidez. Nunca me pareció una idea descabellada. Ser ligeramente

Farshid Moussavi   Ejercer la arquitectura implicar tomar decisiones. Las arquitectas inevitablemente establecen prioridades respecto a lo que es fijo o móvil, cerrado o abierto, transparente u opaco, así como respecto a las estructuras, geometrías y colores que acabar

Andrés Jaque   Para los humanos, el presente, el futuro y también la manera de entender nuestros pasados están determinados por las crisis climáticas. En función de estas crisis se posicionan las políticas económicas, energéticas, tecnológicas, territoriales, medio

Roger Tudó   La arquitectura también está confundida. Llevamos demasiado tiempo haciendo trampas, saltándonos los límites y dejándonos llevar por dinámicas inconsistentes que están machacando el planeta. Hemos vivido una divertida e intensa ficción moderna que no

Bjarke Ingels   La palabra danesa para ‘diseño’ es ‘formgivning’. Literalmente significa ‘dar forma’: diseño no es sino dar forma a lo que todavía no la tiene. Dar forma al futuro. Porque cuando diseñamos un edificio o un espacio público damos forma a un rincón del

Izaskun Chinchilla   Como disciplina y como profesión, la arquitectura está sumida en tres largas y profundas crisis que afectan a la imagen que la sociedad tiene de ella, y, como consecuencia, a los distintos papeles que hoy desempeñamos las arquitectas y a la relevanci

José María Sánchez   Es probable que en este preciso momento estemos recibiendo un wasap: podría ser un mensaje de texto que requiere respuesta, o el hilo de un chat grupal; también podría ser una imagen sugerente, incluso el croquis de un detalle de obra que urge resolv

María Langarita   Vivimos en un mundo nuevo. La sustancia es la misma, pero el mundo es nuevo. Lo vemos de forma diferente. Nuestra forma de mirar ha cambiado. Sobre todo, ha cambiado el alcance de nuestra mirada. En este nuevo mundo todo está expuesto, todo está ilum

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Spain’s 20th century causes sighs of pain and relief. Fuentes and Rueda’s Diccionario de símbolos explores the tragic and festive images of a history which in its latest stretch incorporates events of the 21st, such as the 11-M terrorist attacks or t

Marta García Carbonero   Few architects are as widely published as Miguel Fisac. Just when it seemed that little could be added, three new books suddenly expand the bibliography. Two monographs now accompany the ‘complete works’ published by Francisco Arqués, by Andrés Cánov

Eduardo Prieto   Does being modern mean adopting a style, taking on a certain attitude, continuing to exhaust the paths of the avant-gardes, ultimately finding new ways to do old things? Balkrishna Doshi (1927-2023), one of the fathers of architecture in India, is un

This magazine has tried to cover the events that have marked our time, and so we did with the destruction of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers by the 9/11 attacks, the urbicide in the Balkan Wars, the lockdown during the pandemic, and the ongoing

Foster + Partners   Israel   A new medical research facility located on the campus of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem serves the scientific community while fostering general public interest in its pioneering activities.

Heneghan Peng Architects   Palestine   A faceted building in the middle of a landscape of terraces has the mission of preserving the memory of a people currently displaced and dispersed, but strongly united in identity.

Luis Fernández-Galiano, Rafael Moneo   Rafael Moneo presentó su monografía de AV el 13 de septiembre de 2023 en la Fundación Arquia, con un acto introducido por el vicepresidente de Arquia Banca Alberto Alonso Saezmiera y la directora de la Fundación Sol Candela, en cuyo coloquio final in

Architecture has had so many ties to the hard power of politics and religion that we can easily forget how it has also always, from the very beginning, served the soft power of science. Weren’t the Babylon ziggurats towers from which to observe the s

Renzo Piano Building Workshop   Switzerland   The organization that operates the world’s largest particle physics laboratory has opened a facility for scientific education and outreach, composed of several blocks pierced by a raised walkway.

Zaha Hadid Architects   China   A dreamlike construction seeks to pay homage to the popular literary genre that has thrived in a city of millenarian tradition now turned into a dynamic hub of scientific innovation and research.

Israel and Palestine

Many are the metaphors that have been used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the trials and tribulations of the Middle East: time bomb, lion’s den, hornet’s nest, and so on and so forth. In the way that they each suggest something dist

Under the motto ‘Medium Term,’ the 16th Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (BEAU) delved into architecture’s capacity to anticipate the future through tools of the present, as reflected by the 55 works selected by the curators, María Gonzá

Alberto Campo Baeza, Miguel Quismondo   United States   The Robert Olnick Pavilion, designed by the architects Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo, is an extension of the museum Magazzino Italiam Art, in Cold Spring (New York). Arranged perpendicularly to the existing building, separated from it, the

The German National Theater, the residences of the likes of Goethe, Schiller, Nietzsche, or Liszt, the Bauhaus Museum... Classical Weimar boasts a wealth of places to visit that tell of the city’s rich history, for not in vain is it on the UNESCO Wor

KAAN Architecten   Netherlands   Upon the death of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1962, Het Loo – the summer residence of the House of Orange-Nassau – became a property of the State, and some time later it was turned into a museum. Through an extensive renovation, KAAN Archi

. It is neither frequent nor rare for the FAD Award to be shared by two works on an equal footing. But whereas past ex aequo winners were very different in nature, this time the two awardees address similar concerns with a proactive audacity pointing

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has awarded its Stirling Prize to the John Morden Centre in London, a work of Mae Architects. The accolade is recognition for the best works built in the United Kingdom. This senior daycare is part of

When the nonagenarian Balkrishna Doshi was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2018, the Vitra Museum decided to join in on this late but well deserved recognition through a major retrospective of his lifework, and opened the show less than a

«Yo no tengo el Sena como Monet, tan solo la autopista entre Oklahoma y Los Ángeles». Es por ello que gasolineras y billboards de llamativas tipografías son el núcleo de la obra de Ed Ruscha, y la urbe californiana, su mayor fuente de inspiración. Ha

Perhaps overly presented as a sculptor of matriarchal spiders and tortured bodies, the French-American Louise Bourgeois was in fact also a prolific painter who knew how to capture her most intimate thoughts and exorcise her traumas with the same ease

Iván Bravo   Chile   Project carried out by Iván Bravo together with Martín Rojas (associate architect), in collaboration with Juan Oyarzún. “To avoid being tied up / Let nothing unite us.” These verses from Pablo Neruda’s poem Farewell were proud thoughts of a couple th

Studio Animal   Spain   The set design adapts to the constant changes taking place during the show. The lighting, the music, the contrast between colors, and the dynamism of the performers throughout the representation function as another element of the architecture...

Atelier Bridge Structures, Blank architekti   Czech Republic   Walking on the Charles Bridge, amid so many baroque saints and the breathtaking views of Prague, one easily forgets about the basic purpose of its construction in the year 1357: to connect the castle to the town core on the opposite bank. It was the

Jorge Gorostiza   Works of science fiction are more about the historical moment they are created in than about the uncertain future they are supposedly set in. Hence, whether or not their predictions come true is of no importance. What matters is the study they make o