‘Desiderata’ refers to the things we need or want. How can one possibly write on a guide to modern and contemporary architecture in Burgos without mentioning its cathedral?

When there, I head for one of the world’s most beautiful buildings. Old? Modern? Future? In these architectures, time stands still and beauty conquers all; beauty, what all architects wish for their works. It is glorious Gothic with Renaissance and Baroque parts that make it even more beautiful.

In both Juan Navarro Baldeweg’s Museum of Human Evolution and Fray Coello de Portugal’s Church of Santo Domingo, the shadow of the cathedral’s beauty is patent. Sub umbra alarum tuarum protege nos.

The museum has received many accolades in Spain and abroad. Raised on what was the Convent of San Pablo, it has an impressive presence. And the Dominican church is, like all those built by the friar-architect, gorgeous. I remember my mother, an architect’s daughter, full of praise before the shrine of Santa María del Camino, in León.

And if any of you has not heard of these works, I blame this society’s lack of interest in things that don’t get media coverage. Have you noticed that architecture has all butdisappeared from the media? Music, painting, and literature fill newspapers or cultural supplements. But never architecture.

We have to thank the promoters of this guide to 20th- and 21st-century Burgos architecture for finally making a desiderata come true.