Alberto Campo Baeza, National Architecture Award 2020

The Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, José Ábalos, announced last night through a tweet on his official Twitter page that later retweeted the Ministry's website, that the 2020 National Architecture Prize has been awarded to the architect Alberto Campo Baeza, at the proposal of a jury composed of prominent professionals.

I just spoke with the architect Alberto Campo Baeza to inform him that he has been awarded the 2020 National Architecture Prize, in recognition of the coherence of his career, his creative independence and a lifetime dedicated to teaching.

Alberto Campo Baeza. Photograph by Manuel Yllera

Alberto Campo Baeza is an Academic of Fine Arts and has, among other recognitions, the 2019 Gold Medal for Architecture, 2018 Piranesi Prize of Rome, Arnold W. Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize 2013, 2012 Heinrich Tessenow Gold Medal.

The jury, meeting online yesterday, unanimously agreed to propose the awarding of the prize to Campo Baeza, noting "the coherence of his professional career, his creative independence and his lifetime teaching work dedicated to training different generations of architects who have found in his work a source of inspiration in addition to becoming a benchmark for Spanish architecture both nationally and internationally.

The candidature was presented by the Superior Council of the Colleges of Architects of Spain, the College of Architects of Cádiz, the College of Architects of Almería and the San Pablo CEU University Foundation.

His works include the Casa Turégano or De Blas, both in Madrid, the Gaspar, Asencio and Guerrero houses in Cádiz, or the Caja de Granada and the MA Museum, both in Granada. He is also the author of the Entre Catedrales square in Cádiz and the Moliner houses in Zaragoza and Rufo in Toledo, as well as the Olnick Spanu House in New York and the Nursery for Benetton in Venice.

The 2020 National Architecture Prize is endowed with 60,000 euros and is promoted by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda.

The award was awarded last year to the architect Álvaro Siza.

View of the first floor from the outside. Olnick Spanu house by Alberto Campo Baeza

Sports center. Universidad Francisco de Vitoria Sports Center by Alberto Campo Baeza. Photograph © Javier Callejas

2007. Benetton Nursery. Treviso-Venice, Italy. Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza

Andalucia’s Museum of Memory, in Avenida de las Ciencias, Granada, Spain, by Alberto Campo Baeza Architects. Photograph © Javier Callejas

DOMUS AUREA House by Alberto Campo Baeza. Photography © Javier Callejas Sevilla

The offices of the Castilla León Junta in Zamora. By Alberto Campo Architects. Photography © Javier Callejas

Caja Granada 2001. Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza.

Entre catedrales, Cadiz, Spain, 2009. Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza.

View more images

Metalocus recommends

Tower 15 by OODA. Photograph by Fernando Guerra

Formal unity and diversity. Tower 15 by OODA

SWITCH, New Simon Headquarters by b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos. Photograph by José Hevia

A house for light. SWITCH, New Simon Headquarters by b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos

Domestic housing in the suburbs. House MF by Balsa Crosetto Piazzi

ALBERTO CAMPO BAEZA

Alberto Campo Baeza. Born in Valladolid (1946), where his grandfather was an architect, from the age of two he lived in CADIZ where he saw the LIGHT. From his father he inherited a spirit of ANALYSIS and from his mother the determination to be an ARCHITECT.

He lives in Madrid, where he moved to study Architecture. His first professor was Alejandro de la Sota, who instilled in him the ESSENTIAL architecture that he is still trying to erect. He is a PROFESSOR at the Madrid School of Architecture, ETSAM, where he has been a tenured professor for more than 25 years.

He has taught at the ETH in Zurich and the EPFL in Lausanne as well as the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. And in Dublin and Naples, Virginia and Copenhagen. And at the BAUHAUS in Weimar and at Kansas State University. He spent a year as a research fellow at COLUMBIA University in New York in 2001 and again in 2011. He has given many lectures and has received many awards like the TORROJA for his Caja Granada building. And he was awarded the Buenos Aires Biennial 2009 for his Nursery for Benetton in Venice and his MA Museum in Granada. He has recently been nominated by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the prestigious Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize of 2010.

His works have been widely recognized. From the single family houses Casa Turégano and Casa de Blas, both in Madrid, to Casa Gaspar, Casa Asencio and Casa Guerrero in Cádiz. And the Olnick Spanu House in Garrison, New York, the Centro BIT in Inca-Mallorca, the Caja de Granada Savings Bank and the MA, the Museum of Andalusian Memory, both in Granada, and a nursery for Benetton in Venice. And Between Cathedrals in Cádiz, and just recently a building for Offices in Zamora (2012). And the construction of the new Offices for Benetton in Samara, Russia, which is about to begin.

And more than 20 editions of a BOOK with his texts “LA IDEA CONSTRUÍDA” [THE BUILT IDEA] have been published in several languages. A fourth edition of “PENSAR CON LAS MANOS”, a second compilation of his writings, has just been published. And just now “PRINCIPIA ARCHITECTONICA”, a collection of his texts written during his sabbatical year at Columbia University in New York in 2011.

He believes in Architecture as a BUILT IDEA. And he believes that the principle components of Architecture are GRAVITY that constructs SPACE and LIGHT that constructs TIME.

He has exhibited his work in the CROWN HALL by Mies at Chicago’s IIT and at the PALLADIO Basilica in Vicenza. And in the Urban Center in New York. And at the Saint Irene Church in Istanbul. In 2009 the prestigious MA Gallery of Toto in Tokyo made an anthological exhibition of his work that in 2011 was in the MAXXI in Rome.

Act.>. 04-2012