Luis Fernández-Galiano   In why nations fail, the MIT economist Daron Acemoglu and the Harvard political scientist James Robinson explore the origins of power, prosperity and poverty, and arrive at a depressing conclusion: nations sink or sail ahead depending on their instit

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Motionless architectures move a lot. Nothing seems as static as buildings, firmly rooted in a place in the world, and yet nothing moves as swiftly as the people and the ideas that shape them. From the megalithic cultures all the way to the contempora

Luis Fernández-Galiano   PLACING ITSELF at the service of architects  but also at the service of those who live in buildings and cities, AV/Arquitectura Viva has called for austerity and solidarity as a way of dealing with the crisis that afflicts so many European countries.

Gonzalo Moure   Spain   THE MADRID City Council and the Madrid Institute of Architects (Colegio de Arquitectos de Madrid, or COAM) called an international competition in 2005 for the new headquarters of the latter. The plot chosen was a large urban block on Hortaleza Street

Exit Architects   Spain   Social changes and the passage of time  render public facilities obsolete, because there may come a given moment when they no longer gather the necessary conditions to continue fulfilling their original purpose. The Provincial Prison o

Antoni Vilanova, Jaime Ferrer Forés   To revitalize a peripheral neighborhood  and preserve the elements that define thearea’s industrial heritage are the two objectives of the urban project that is presently under way in La Soledat, a neighborhood in Palma de Mallorca. The wool blanket

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos   Spain   Mistrusting the supposed efficiency and container so often used nowadays, we devised a building closely linked to a place and to a faraway memory. A building in which each space is configured individually, in a time that is subject to transforming i

Víctor López Cotelo   Spain   The conservation and Preservation Center has been built with the intention of bringing   together the functions of the Spanish Film Library, scattered in different buildings. The neutral character of the environment – it goes up in the Ciudad de la I

Alberto Campo Baeza, Alfonso González Gaisán, Francisco Blanco, Pablo Fernández Lorenzo, Pablo Redondo Díez   Spain   A plot across from the Romanesque Cathedral of Zamora was the place chosen for the construction of the headquarters of the Advisory Board of the regional government of Castilla y León. The competition held produced a winning proposal that stems from

COR Architecture + Design, Jesús Olivares Casado, Miguel Rodenas Mussons   Spain   The confederation of Employers of Albacete (FEDA) is an association that represents the business network in the region, with approximately 15,000 members. In 2006 plans were drawn to bring together its different facilities, scattered throughout the c

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The El Greco Convention Center of Toledo is accessed through a small square located next to Calle de las Armas, and which leads to Plaza de Zocodover. This square offers broad, impressive views over Tavera Hospital and the Tagus River. The building

Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra   Spain   Built over twenty years ago by Antonio Sáseta, the Sevillian FIBES Congress and Exhibition Center needed a new auditorium for larger events and also to enlarge its exhibition area. The extension project, which adds 35,000 square meters to the existin

MGM Arquitectos   Spain   Located in the historic center of Zamora, the Ramos Carrión Theater, inaugurated  in 1916, is a modernist building that has undergone several alterations throughout the 20th century. For some time it was used as a cinema, and in 1967, in order to ad

Martínez Lapeña & Elías Torres   Spain   Located in Badalona, the Contemporary Culture Center of El Carmen, which borrows its name from the old maternity hospital that used to take up the plot, occupies the corner of Francesc Layret and Sant Francesc d’Assís streets, very close to the Town

Javier Fresneda, Javier Sanjuán, MTM arquitectos   Spain   The Universidad Autónoma of Madrid has grown around a central space of encounter and circulation, a green boulevard that has become its backbone. On one of its ends is the commuter train station that connects with the Puerta del Sol, on the other, th

Juan Miguel Otxotorena   Spain   Located in the University of Navarre campus of Pamplona, the building will be the definitive headquarters of the School of Economics and Business. With a large number of classrooms and halls adapted to current teaching methods, it goes up by the Law

Ramón Fernández-Alonso   The building of La Inmaculada Teacher  Training School, which belongs to theArchbishopry of Granada, is located in the residential neighborhood of Almanjáyar, the city’s area of expansion through the north and that is characterized by the predominanc

David Sebastián, Gerard Puig   Two adjacent sites, though separated by a  road, were the starting point of a competition  promoted by the Amposta City Council. It included the construction of two buildings of very different program and scale in a peripheral, but strategic, area of

Fernando De Retes Aparicio, Retes Arquitectos   Spain   The objective of recovering buildings in disuse is a good starting point for public interventions, and the guideline for this specific project, which is minimal but still manages to produce a powerful and unitary image. Reusing as much of the existin

Coll-Barreu Arquitectos, Daniel Gutiérrez Zarza , Juan Coll-Barreu   Spain   Commissioned after a competition, this building is meant to become a symbol representing the ambitious expansion carried out by the Technological Park of Álava, and of the commitment of government institutions with research and innovation. The brief

aldayjover arquitectura y paisaje, Iñaki Alday, Margarita Jover, Jover   Spain   Promoted by  Fundación Agrícola Fundagro, which promotes ecological harvesting and the recovery of biodiversity in local seeds, the new complex is located in Aranzadi Park, after restoring a meander of the River Arga as it goes through Pamplona. The

José Javier Gallardo | G///bang   Spain   THE NUESTRA Señora del Carmen Neuropsychiatric Center is located on the outskirts of Zaragoza, surrounded by harvest lands and scattered small-scale structures. The construction of the new building was motivated by the need to extend the facilities.

Amann Cánovas & Maruri - Temperaturas Extremas   Spain   A few years ago the then Ministry of Housing launched the competition ‘Hacemos Ciudad’ (creating a city) for the construction of 5,688 social housing units in differen regions of Spain. This is one of the shortlisted projects that has finally been ca

Batlleiroig   Spain   Can Bisa is a colonial house of the 19th  century, which belongs to the Vilassar de Mar Town Hall and is listed in the current general plan. It is a unique one-story building, and the Town Hall deemed that it was the ideal site for a new cultural fac

Estudio de Arquitectura Toni Gironès   Spain   Salou is on the southern coast of Tarragona. The Prades Mountains run parallel to the coastline at some 25 kilometers, and the humid air from the sea meets the range and is condensed in the form of rain that falls on the steep mountain slopes and wat

IND [Inter.National.Design]   Spain   Buikt after an international competition organized by the former Ministry of Housing under the motto ‘Hacemos Ciudad’ (creating a city), the project for these dwellings has had to adjust to an unstructured environment with a very tight budget. The c

Herman Hertzberger Hermann Hertzberger received the Gold Medal with which the Royal Institute of British Architects has every year since 1848 been honoring the careers of professionals whose works have an international reach. An instigator, along wit

Henning Larsen The Imperial House of Japan and the Japan Art Association have every year since 1989 been awarding the Praemium Imperiale, endowed with 15 million Yen (132,000 euros), to five artists in painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and ci

Wang Shu  The artisanal nature of his buildings and a search for balance between tradition and modernity in the context of contemporary China’s fast-paced growth were the reasons laid down by the jury of the Hyatt Foundation (whose members inclu

Steven Holl The 1947-born Steven Holl was the 2012 recipient of the AIA Gold Medal, the most important award that the American Institute of Architects bestows yearly to distinguish the work of professionals who have had an influence on architectural

Álvaro Siza The jury of the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, composed of Wiel Arets (chairman), Robert Stern, Benedetta Tagliabue, Alan Yentob and Kristin Freiress, conferred the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Álvaro Siza Vieira. The traje

Juan Navarro Baldeweg Along with the Argentine César Naselli, Juan Navarro Baldeweg won the Career Trajectory Award at the 8th Iberian-American Architecture and Urbanism Biennial, held in 2012 in the Spanish city of Cádiz. Previously conferred on pro

Michael Graves Michael Graves won the 2012 Richard H. Driehaus Prize, a US$200,000 award that the University of Notre Dame has been giving yearly since 2003 as recognition of excellence in classical architecture and traditional urban planning. In the

Laboratorios Sainsbury For the Sainsbury Laboratory building, Stanton Williams was declared the 2012 winner of the Stirling Prize, an award for the architect of the each year’s best new building in the United Kingdom. It was the first time for its au

Rafael Moneo For being “a recognized master in the academic and professional fields” and for the “universal nature” of buildings that, in the words of the jury that included Frank Gehry and Philippe Starck, “enrich urban spaces with a serene and come

Javier Carvajal Created to acknowledge “individuals and institutions that enhance and ennoble architectural activity”, the Gold Medal of the Council of Spanish Architectural Associations for 2012 went to Javier Carvajal. Born in Barcelona in the year

Cap de Creus Spearheaded by Martí Franch and Ton Ardèvol, the restoration of the Tudela-Cap de Creus site was the winner of the Rosa Barba European Landscape Prize at the 7th European Biennial of Landscape Architecture. In the jury’s opinion, this wo

Matadero Madrid On its 54th year, the FAD Award for Architecture and Interior Design distinguished collective work vis-à-vis the individualism of ‘star architects’. The jury chaired by Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra gave the prize to the Matadero de Mad

1934 - 2012 With its contorted steel facade, the Z-Bank on Vienna’s Favoritenstrasse is perhaps Günther Domenig’s most famous work. Born in Klagenfurt and trained at the Technische Universität of Graz, where he would have his studio and be a professo

1915 - 2012 Gerhard Michael Kallmann was born in the Berlin of World War I, and lived there until his family, fearing the Nazi regime, emigrated to London. He studied at the Architectural Association and in 1948 moved to the United States, eventually

1949 - 2012 Lebbeus Woods was perhaps the last of the visionary architects, if by ‘visionary’ we mean those with no hope of ever seeing their works built. Born in Michigan in 1940, his architectural calling came early on in life. Already at age 20 he

On 5th December 2012, ten days before his 105th birthday and six months after the death of his octogenarian daughter, the longest-living master of the Modern Movement passed away in Rio de Janeiro, the city where he was born and where he maintained a

A native of Rostock (Germany), Ludwig Leo belonged to the first generation of architects who earned their degrees after World War II, in which he had participated at only 20 years of age, losing a leg in the Eastern Front. After studying engineering

1921 - 2012 An architect, critic and historian of the second half of the 20th century, Alan Colquhoun belonged to the group of British professionals – with James Stirling, Colin Rowe and the Smithsons – who after World War II tried to reconcile moder

1922 - 2012 Born in Lüneberg in 1922, Hardt-Waltherr Hämer was a German architect with a specialty in theaters and a persistent critic of planning rooted in functionalism. He studied in Berlin’s Academy of Fine Arts and Weimar’s School of Architectur

1932 - 2012 “If Jorge Glusberg had not existed, we would have had to invent him.” Mario Robert Álvarez’s opinion was perhaps shared by many who considered Glusberg the greatest promoter of Argentinian architecture and the best champion of his country

1927 - 2012 Gae Aulenti was a pioneer not only because she was a woman architect, but because she was an internationally recognized figure at a time – the 1960s and 1970s – when the Zaha Hadids or Kazuyo Sejimas of today were unimaginable. Born in 19

1930 - 2012 If the work of Antoni Gaudí is universally acknowledged heritage, it is largely thanks to Joan Bassegoda Nonell, an architect and professor who wrote 1,500 articles and some thirty books on the oeuvre of the genius from Reus. Born in Barc

1919 - 2012 Julián Manzano-Monís passed away at age 93 in his native Madrid. He studied architecture in the capital and his career had an early start through Luis Gutiérrez Soto, in whose office he trained before setting up his own practice. In the 1

1959 - 2012 “He died as everyone would like to die, suddenly, in his sleep.” With these words Luis Moreno Mansilla referred to his grandfather in the dedication of his doctoral thesis. As it turned out, they would apply to his own death at 52, in Ba

1939 - 2012 As author of Barcelona’s seafront transformation – through the refurbishment of the Moll de la Fusta – as well as of the Illa Diagonal, in collaboration with Rafael Moneo, Manuel de Solà-Morales i Rubió had a key influence 

1920-2012 Born in Valencia, Juan José Estellés belonged to a family linked to the world of art (his grandfather had a plaster carving workshop) and received an exacting education at Madrid’s Institución Libre de Enseñanza. During the Spanish Civil Wa

1952 - 2012 Dario Gazapo de Aguilera graduated from the Madrid School of Architecture, where he had Juan Daniel Fullaondo and Juan Navarro Baldeweg as prominent teachers. His career was marked by his double path as designing architect and university

1959 - 2012 Born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1952, José María Rodríguez-Pastrana Malagón was one of three constituents of AMP (along with Felipe Artengo, like him a founding member, and Fernando Menis, who would go his own way in 2004), the studio t

Adriaan Geuze, Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation, Burgos & Garrido, Cayetana de la Quadra-Salcedo, Edzo Bindels, Martin Biewenga, Porras La Casta arquitectos, West 8, Rubio & Álvarez-Sala, Alejandro Virseda, Ignacio Vila, Iñaqui Carnicero, Arturo Franco   Spain   The refurbishment of Matadero is one of the most ambitious cultural projects launched in the city over the last years. Converted into a contemporary art center, it develops a stable activity since 2007. Its comprehensive program and varied activities