In a liquid world, security dissolves. The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, who died this year, theorized on the dystopian modernity that the planet now shows. When solid structures are transformed into unpredictable flows, the risk society described thre
Land architecture, but also architecture of the land. After three decades of work, Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta have obtained universal recognition for a stubbornly local oeuvre: the most media-savvy award of them all has distinguish
From his first works over half a century ago, the architecture of Norman Foster has used technical knowledge to prefigure the future and overcome physical and social barriers. Inspired as much in historical buildings as in scientific developments, hi
The meeting of a fisherman and a sailor has produced a miracle in Santander. Back in 2010, Emilio Botín, banker and fisherman, commissioned Renzo Piano, architect and sailor, to build an art center in Santander. Seven years later, the careening volum
The book by Juan Benet is already fifty years old. A half-century has passed during which the nation Spain has gone from bimillenial to bicentennial and ended up a mythical space not unlike the novelist’s Región or Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha. Myt
The Botín Centre, a space for art, culture and education, projecting into the Bay of Santander, restores the ties between the historical part of the city and the sea. The freeway separating the park from the sea has now been rung underground through
With the idea of creating a new sector for visitors for the thousands of tourists that travel to this Balearic island every year, in 2005 a competition was called to design the new Congress Center and Hotel on Palma’s waterfront, parallel to the beac
The center is on the boundary between the town and the country, between the artificial and the natural. It was necessary to choose one of the two sides, and from the outset the second option was chosen. This forced to rest the buildings on a much low
The new stadium of the Atlético de Madrid extends the old Athletics Stadium of the Community of Madrid - nicknamed ‘La Peineta’ -, completed in 1994 by the same architects and with capacity for 19.000 spectators, a building whose distinctive image be
On the Isla de La Cartuja, next to the Pabellón de la Navegación – built in 1992 by the same studio – and at the foot of Sevilla Tower, designed by César Pelli, sits the eighth venue of CaixaForum, a network of cultural centers promoted by la Caixa,
Located since 2008 in the former schools of Cerezales del Condado, a town located 23 kilometers away from León, in the northwest of Spain, the Cerezales Antonino and Cinia Foundation is a private institution, focused on the development of the territo
Seeing the need to modernize the city courts, the regional government of Andalusia called a competition for the construction of the new City of Justice of Córdoba. On a plot of 12,000 square meters, in a new urban area, the project would give the nei
Two years after starting the project for the Banco Popular building on Calle Abelias – phase I – (see AV 165-166), the same studio was commissioned to develop a proposal that would adapt to a different economic situation, for the second phase, on Cal
The Descendientes de J. Palacios Winery was located in the town of Villafranca del Bierzo. Its facilities were spread in different structures and warehouses, so it became necessary to reconfigure and gather them all in one building. The desire to ble
The construction of a winery and the winemaking process are closely attached to an experience with the land. Wine is the aroma, color, taste, body, and essence of the grape. This combination of senses and perceptions needs to be accompanied by a plac
The Baztán Valley is an area in the north of Navarre, bordering with France, with a spectacular natural environment, surrounded by mountains and dotted with towns made up of individual houses.
Desert City is a multifunctional complex devoted to xerophyte plants and the production of a whole culture of interests around this species. It is a sustainable and ecological center, where different activities going from exhibition, breeding, and sa
This public facility houses an adult education center, a language standardization consortium, and a hotel on a triangular plot in the Les Corts district. Two of the three sides of the site are defined by the heritage-listed frontage of the former Pla
Built in 1930 by the Valencian architect Cayetano Borso di Carminati, the old hydraulic pump factory of Carlos Gens, on Avenida de Burjassot, is one of the few standing examples of industrial architecture from the period. The complex was closed perma
Santa María de Vilanova de la Barca is a Gothic church of the 13th century that was partially destroyed in 1936 during Civil War bombings. Since then the building has remained in a state of neglect and only the east facade, some fragments of the aisl
Impluvium is a large roof built with a laminated timber structure whose components were industrialized and assembled on site, replacing the old town market that was demolished after a fire. The roof, together with four concrete boxes that rise from t
The Fundación Laboral de la Construcción found the most convenient site for the Centro de Referencia Nacional en Materia de Rehabilitación (public research and innovation center in the field of refurbishment) in the old 18th century tannery of Pontep
The new Massana School is part of a long process of urban transformation around Plaça de la Gardunya, in the Raval neighborhood, in the historic center of Barcelona. The project analyzes the place in detail. Unlike the residential block on the same
In a sports complex in Taradell, a small town in the province of Barcelona, the site of this indoor swimming pool and the precipitous terrain determine its configuration, articulated in four parts: the outdoor tracks, the wall, the services building,
The new construction, containing a sports pavilion and a classroom building, is located in the campus of the Francisco de Vitoria University, in the city of Pozuelo de Alarcón, some 20 kilometers west of Madrid. The facility includes sports courts an
Play-time is a project for seven short-term rental apartments in the Madrid district of Ciudad Lineal. The developer chose the place with the idea of searching for ‘an oasis in the middle of the city,’ and the project intends to intensify that condit
The project 110 Habitaciones (110 Rooms) on Calle Provença in Barcelona, stems from the radicalization of the most valuable elements of the traditional domestic types of the Eixample. The floor plans are configured following the distribution of equiv
The project Life Reusing Posidonia was born with the objective of supplying verified data to the administrations responsible for regulating the environmental impact in the building sector. The model complex consists of 14 subsidized dwellings in Sant
Located in Somosaguas, a residential area in the municipality of Pozuelo de Alarcón – 10 kilometers to the northwest of Madrid –, the project was born with the intention of creating a sort of habitat, a new neighborhood in which the houses are loosel
Neave Brown The Gold Medal of the RIBA (The Royal Institute of British Architects) is the maximum distinction that can be awarded in the United Kingdom to a professional in the field, and in the latest edition it went to the American architect and ar
Rafael Moneo Rafael Moneo probably sees awards from a certain distance now, but it is still great news that the most influential Spanish architect has been honored in 2017 - year in which he turned 80 - with an award as important as the Praemium Impe
RCR Arquitectos The trend that the Pritzker Prize seemed to have adopted in its latest editions with laureates like Alejandro Aravena or Shigeru Ban did not seem to point in the direction of RCR Arquitectes, a trio whose radical architecture at first
Paul Revere Williams The American Institute of Architects announced Paul Revere Williams as posthumous winner of its 2017 Gold Medal. Williams was one of the first black students admitted to architecture schools in the United States, and the first to
Hastings Pier Awarded yearly by the Royal Institute of British Architects to a work built by a British architect or studio within the European Union, in 2017 the Stirling Prize has gone to a work by the London studio dRMM: the reconstruction, refurb
Toyo Ito Founded in 1961, the Gold Medal of the UIA (International Union of Architects) honors “professionals whose qualities, talents, and actions have had an international impact on the diverse sectors of architectural practice”. It is a gene
Francis Kéré Since 1997, the awards of the Prince Claus Foundation, based in the Netherlands, are presented annually to individuals or organizations whose cultural actions have a positive impact on culture and development, highlighting significant ac
Martínez Lapeña y Torres Since 1932 the Spanish Government has given the National Award for Architecture, which has gone through many ups and downs and changes of direction over the years, but which is still the most prestigious award in Spai
Museo de Colecciones Reales / Palacio de Congresos de Palma Since 1993, the CSCAE (Spanish Association of Architecture Institutes) bestows the National Award for Architecture to singular works that entail an innovative contribution and are paradigmat
Batlle i Roig / Rafael de La-Hoz Created in 1981, the Spanish Association of Architecture Institutes gives its Gold Medal to people or institutions that have contributed significantly to the defense of the interests of architecture, or to architects
Royal Collections Museum The FAD Award for Architecture in 2017 went to the Royal Collections Museum in Madrid, by Mansilla + Tuñón. According to the jury, chaired by Belén Moneo, it “masterfully delivers an architecture which is timeless and sedate,
The biennial European Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award has gone to the unique renovation of the deFlat Kleiburg residential complex in Amsterdam, built by the Dutch firms NL Architects and XVW architectuur. The other fina
1919-2016 James Ackerman passed away on 31 December 2016, at 97. He was one of the most influential professors of art and architectural history in the United States. Born in San Francisco in 1919, Ackerman studied at Yale University, where he met his
1923-2017 The death of Leonardo Benevolo on 5 January 2017 was also that of the last generation of master theorists and historians of architecture in the 20th century, in particular Italian architecture: the one that starts with Bruno Zevi and Giulio
1920-2017 Eduard Sekler passed away on 1 May in Cambridge (Massachusetts), at the age of 96. The architectural historian was the common link between the iconograpic studies of interwar Europe and the visual studies that began to develop in the US in
1934-2017 Albert Speer Jr. belonged to a saga of architects, though this cannot be considered an advantage for the 12-year-old child who saw how they sent his father, Albert Speer Sr. – Hitler’s architect – to the Berlin prison of Spandau, which we w
1924-2017 The son of a civil servant and an aesthetician, John Portman studied at the United States Naval Academy before graduating at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He established his studio in 1953, and was able from the start to make the mos
1920-2017 Vincent Scully, one of the true patriarchs of American architecture, passed away at an almost patriarchal age, having turned 97 already. Born in New Haven, Scully studied at Yale University, where he taught for more than sixty years until b
1926-2017 Antonio Lamela, one of the last masters of Spanish modernity, died in Madrid on 1 April. Graduated in 1954 from the ETSAM (Madrid School of Architecture), the son of a real-estate developer and builder focused his practical intelligence on
1929-2017 The son of a chaired Physics professor and of the famed lexicographer María Moliner, Fernando Ramón was born in Murcia in 1929. He graduated and earned his doctorate from the ETSAM (Madrid School of Architecture), though his most fruitful e
1925-2017 Rubens Henríquez died on 26 April in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. He was a key referent for architects in the Canary Islands. Henríquez graduated from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB) in 1951, and contributed as few others to renovat
1925-2017 In the Barcelona of the 1960s and 1970s, Enric Tous and his partner Josep Maria Fargas designed buildings that departed from Catalonian modernity, linked to the European schools and to a great extent tutored by the great Italian masters. In
1957-2017 After a long illness, Luis Maldonado Ramos passed away in Cádiz on 29 August. Chaired professor of Architectural Construction and Technology at Madrid’s Universidad Politécnica, Maldonado was a referent in the fields of architectural refurb
1925-2017 Josep Maria Martorell Codina – the first M of MBM Arquitectes, a key office in modern Spanish architecture –, died in Barcelona, his home city, on 28 November. The son of a prestigious educator who raised him in the Scout Movement, Martorel
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