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Antoni Gaudí i Cornet

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet, (25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926)  was born in 1852 in Riudoms or Reus, to the coppersmith Francesc Gaudí i Serra (1813–1906) and Antònia Cornet i Bertran (1819–1876). He was the youngest of five children, of whom three survived to adulthood: Rosa (1844–1879), Francesc (1851–1876) and Antoni. Gaudí's family originated in the Auvergne region in southern France. One of his ancestors, Joan Gaudí, a hawker, moved to Catalonia in the 17th century; possible origins of Gaudí's family name include Gaudy or Gaudin.

Gaudí's work was influenced by his passions in life: architecture, nature, and religion. He considered every detail of his creations and integrated into his architecture such crafts as ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork forging and carpentry. He also introduced new techniques in the treatment of materials, such as trencadís which used waste ceramic pieces.

Under the influence of neo-Gothic art and Oriental techniques, Gaudí became part of the Modernista movement which was reaching its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work transcended mainstream Modernisme, culminating in an organic style inspired by natural forms. Gaudí rarely drew detailed plans of his works, instead preferring to create them as three-dimensional scale models and moulding the details as he conceived them. Gaudí's work enjoys global popularity and continuing admiration and study by architects. His masterpiece, the still-incomplete Sagrada Família, is the most-visited monument in Spain.

On 7 June 1926, Gaudí was taking his daily walk to the Sant Felip Neri church for his habitual prayer and confession. While walking along the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes between Girona and Bailén streets, he was struck by a passing tram and lost consciousness. Assumed to be a beggar because of his lack of identity documents and shabby clothing, the unconscious Gaudí did not receive immediate aid. Eventually some passers-by transported him in a taxi to the Santa Creu Hospital, where he received rudimentary care. By the time that the chaplain of the Sagrada Família, Mosén Gil Parés, recognised him on the following day, Gaudí's condition had deteriorated too severely to benefit from additional treatment. Gaudí died on 10 June 1926 at the age of 73 and was buried two days later.

FERMÍN VÁZQUEZ. b720

Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa (Madrid, 1961) architect since 1988. He studied at ETSAM (Madrid) and ETSAB (Barcelona). He leads b720 Fermín Vázquez Architects, which he set up with Ana Bassat in 1997, with offices in Barcelona, Madrid, Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre.

b720 is an international studio. It works globally within its offices in Brasil and Spain, in projects located in a dozen of differents countries.

The work of the studio, which has been showed in several events and museums as the Biennal of Venice, the Cité of París and MoMA of NY, has been awarded nationally and internationally with several prizes, among there are two RIBA Awards, a World Architecture Festival award, four awards ASPRIMA-SIMA, the Emporis Skyscraper Award and the European Public Urban Space award.

Among his best-known projects there are the Agbar Tower -with Jean Nouvel Architectures-, Lérida's airport, the Plaza del Torico in Teruel, La Mola Conference Centre in Barcelona, the City of Justice of Barcelona and the building for de America Cup in Valencia -both with David Chipperfield Architects- and the Gran Casino Costa Brava in Lloret de Mar. Currently working, among other projects, on the new Mercat dels Encants in Barcelona, the new international airport of Cuzco in Perú, the regeneration of the Waterfront of Cais Mauá of Porto Alegre, a new neighbourhood for 70.000 residents in Brasilia and in several high buildings in Sao Paulo.

He usually combines the proffesional practise with teaching. He has been teacher at ETSAB, at l'École d'Architecture et Paysage de Burdeos, at Universidad Europea de Madrid and he has given courses and conferences large universities and institutions all over the world.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was born in Aquisgran the 27th of Marz of 1886 and died in Chicago the 17th of August of 1969. He was active in Germany, from 1908 to 1938, when he moved to USA and where he was until his death. He was also considerate a “master” of the Modern Movement, since the 50s, and he was one of the fathers of this movement with Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Mies van der Rohe, who in his childhood was guided by masters as Hendrik Petrus Berlage or Peter Behrens, he always kept tabs of the Villlet-Le-Duc’s rationalism or Karl Friedrich Schinkel eclectic classicism, having a strong connection with the architectural historicism. As he said in his manifesto “Baukunst und Zeiwille” about this: “it is not possible to move on looking back”.

In 1900 he began to work with his father in the stone workshop of the family and shortly afterward he move to Berlin to work with Bruno Paul in 1902, designing furniture. He planned his first house in 1907, the “Riehl House” in Neubabelsbers and worked from 1908 to 1911 in Peter Behrens’s studio. There he was influenced by structural technics and designs based on steel and glass, as the AEG project in Berlin. While he was in Behrens’s studio he designed the Perls House.

In 1912 he openned his own studio and projected a house in The Hague for Kröller-Müller marriage. The studio received few jobs in its first years, but Mies, contrary to architects as Le Corbusier, in his first years he already showed an architectural policy to follow, being an architect that changed little his architectural philosophy. To his epoch belonged the Heertrasse House and Urbig House as his principal projects.

In 1913 se move to the outskirts of Berlin with his wife Ada Bruhn with whom he would have three kids. The family broke up when Mies was posted to Romania during the World War I.

In 1920, Ludwig Mies changed his surname to Mies van der Rohe and in 1922 he joined as member to the “Novembergruppe”. One year later, in 1923, he published the magazine “G” with Doesburg Lisstzky and Rechter. During this period he worked in two houses, the Birck House and the Mosler House. In 1926, Mies van der Rohe held the post of chief commissioner of the German Werkbund exhibition, being his president this year. In this period he projected the Wolf House in Guden and the Hermann Lange House in Krefeld and in 1927, he met the designer Lilly Reich, in the house exhibition of Weissenhof, where he was director, and he planned a steel structure block for her.

In 1929, he received the project the German National Pavilion to the International Exhibition of Barcelona) rebuilt in 1986=, where he included the design of the famous Barcelona Chair.

In 1930, he planned in Brün – present Czech Republic -, the Tugendhat Villa. He managed the Dessau’s Bauhaus until his closure in 1933. The Nazism forced Mies to emigrate to the United States in 1937. He was designated chair of the Architecture department in Armour Institute in 1938, the one that later merged with the Lewis Institute, forming the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and where he took the responsibility to build a considerable extent of the foundations of the Intitute from 1939 and 1958. One of the buildings of this complex is the Crown Hall, IIT (1950-1956).

In 1940, he met the person who would be his partner until his death, Lora Marx. He became citizen of the USA in 1944 and, one year later, he began with the Farnsworth House’s project (1945-1950). During this stage, in 1948, he designed his first skyscraper: the two towers of the Lake Drive Apartments in Chicago, which were finished in 1951. Shortly after, he planned other building of this typology, the Commonwealth Promenade Apartments, from 1953 to 1956.

In 1958 he projected his most important work: the Segram Building in New York. This building has 37 storeys, covered with glass and bronze, which built and planned with Philip Johnson. He retired from the Illinois Institute of Technology the same year. He also built more towers and complexes as: the Toronto Dominion Centre (1963-1969) and the Westmount Square (1965-1968) and designed the New Square and Office Tower of The City of London (1967).

From 1962 to 1968, he built the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, which would be his last legacy to the architecture. The building that rose as exhibition hall is made of steel, glass and granite.

He died in Chicago the 17th of August if 1969 leaving behind a large legacy and influence to next generations.

The Mies van der Rohe’s most famous sentences are “Less is more” and “God is in the details”.
 

Enric MIRALLES

Enric Miralles Moya (Barcelona 1955 - Sant Feliu de Codines 2000) studied at the Barcelona School of Architecture, ETSAB, graduating in 1978. From 1973 to 1983 he collaborated with Albert Viaplana and Helio Piñón, and in 1984 he founded the Enric Miralles and Carme Pinós studio, from this stage one of his most poetic works stands out, such as the Igualada Cemetery. In 1993 he began the EMBT study with his wife and partner Benedetta Tagliabue.

Considered an architect of great inventiveness, he defined himself as the enfant terrible of Spanish architecture. He was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at Columbia University for the 1980-81 academic year. Two years later, he presented his doctoral thesis "Things seen to the left and the right, (without glasses)."

Since 1985 he was professor at ETSAB (Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona), holding the Chair of Architecture since 1996. In 1990 he began as Director and Professor of the Master Class at Städelschule of Frankfurt and beginning in 1992 served as the "Kenzo Tange Chair” professor at the GSD of Harvard University. Moreover, he was visiting professor and lecturer at several universities in the United States (Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, Yale), Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, and a member of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland.

As an architect of many works, his projects include, the Igualada Cemetery in Spain (1995) and the rehabilitation of Utrecht City Hall in Holland (2000). He was also active as an interior designer, with projects including The Hipostila shelving system(1989) in collaboration with Lluis Clotet and Oscar Tusquets Blanca for Bd Ediciones de Diseño, Lungomare Bench for Escofet,(2000), Vacante bench for Sellex (1991), and many other furnishing designs which were not put in production.

He has received numerous awards, including the National Prize of Spanish Architecture 1995, FAD Prize (Fomento Artes Decorativas) 1985 and 2000, The European ITALSTAD (Italy) 1991. Leone d’Oro Prize at the Biennale di Venezia 1996. His work has been published internationally in the most distinguished reviews, El Croquis N.100 101, Enric Miralles Benedetta Tagliabue 1996-2000. GG. Miralles Tagliabue Time Architecture 1999. Electa, Documenti di Architettutra. Benedetta Tagliabue. Enric Miralles: Opere e Progetti. 1996. In 1999 he was named an Honorary member of The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. In 2002 he received posthumously the Gold Medal from the Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya.

Benedetta Tagliabue

Benedetta Tagliabue was born in Milan and graduated from the University of Venice in 1989. In 1991 she joined Enric Miralles’ studio where she eventually became a partner. Her work with Miralles, whom she married, includes a number of high profile buildings and projects in Barcelona: Parque Diagonal Mar (1997-2002), Head Office Gas Natural (1999-2006) and the Market and quarter Santa Caterina (1996-2005), as well as projects across Europe, including the School of Music in Hamburg (1997-2000) and the City Hall in Utrecht (1996-2000).

In 1998, the partnership won the competition to design the new Scottish Parliament building and despite Miralles’ premature death in 2000, Tagliabue took leadership of the team as joint Project Director and the Parliament was successfully completed in 2004, winning several awards.

She won the competition for the new design of Hafencity Harbor in Hamburg , Germany, for a subway train station in Naples and for the Spanish Pavilion for Expo Shanghai 2010 among others.

Today under the direction of Benedetta Tagliabue the Miralles-Tagliabue-EMBT studio works with architectural projects, open spaces, urbanism, rehabilitation and exhibitions, trying to conserve the spirit of the Spanish and Italian artisan architectural studio tradition which espouses collaboration rather than specialization.

Their architectural philosophy is dedicating special attention to context.

Benedetta has written for several architectural magazines and has taught at, amongst other places, the University of architecture ETSAB in Barcelona. She has lectured in many international architectural Forums as, for example, the RIBA, the Architectural Association and Bartlett School in, London, the Berlage Institut in Amsterdam, and in USA, China and South America.

Antoni BONET i CASTELLANA

Antoni Bonet i Castellana, known as Antonio Bonet, (Barcelona, August 13, 1913 - September 13, 1989) was an architect, urban planner and Spanish designer, who lives in the River Plate for most of his life.

He began his professional career with the architects Josep Lluís Sert and Torres Clavé, who founded the MIDVA (Home Furnishings current housing). In those years he was a member of GATCPAC. In 1936, just completed his architectural studies, travels to Paris where he joined the studio of Le Corbusier.

River Plate. Spanish Civil War broke out, and decided to emigrate to the Rio de la Plata. He lived in the city of Buenos Aires in Argentina and in Punta del Este in Uruguay.

Austral Group founder Jorge Ferrari Hardoy in conjunction with and Juan Kurchan. He is credited with its partners the mythical BKF, although the authorship of it is finally assigned to the Argentine Jorge Ferrari Hardoy. Projects the House of Studies for Artists in Buenos Aires; and Terrace Palace building and Rivadavia and the Americas in Mar del Plata galleries. Built numerous buildings on the coast of Punta Ballena (notable Solana del Mar hotel and Berlingieri house in Portezuelo), which makes urbanization. Also works projects in Paraguay, residing for decades in Buenos Aires, traveling to Barcelona and Madrid.

Barcelona. Barcelona projected the Ricarda (1949-1963) and Greyhound Track Meridiana, by which received a 1963 FAD architecture prize. Likewise he projected between 1960-1965, together with Josep Puig Torné, the residential complex of Pine Beach, Gava Mar, on behalf of society FAESA family Guardans Cambo, example of rationalist construction advocated by the Bauhaus and applied by the GATCPAC, grouping to which belonged.

Theory. He considered architecture as an organizing matter in the life of man and believed that the activity of the architect extended from the conception of a piece of furniture to a city planning. One of his constant was the effort to integrate the various scales of the human habitat, researching new materials and shapes for architectural spaces and furniture in the service of society.

Ricardo Bofill

Ricardo Bofill Levi. Born in December 5th, 1939 in Barcelona. He studied architecture at the Barcelona School of Architecture, a center from which he was expelled in 1957 for his political activism. He subsequently graduated in Urbanism and Architecture at the Haute École du Paysage, d ’Ingénierie et d’ Architecture in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1963 he gathered a multidisciplinary, multitalented group in order to confront the complexity of architectural practice; architects, engineers, planners, sociologist, writers, movie makers and philosophers, conformed what is known today as the Taller de Arquitectura.

In his first period, Bofill recuperated the characteristic craft elements of traditional Catalan architecture. Later on, he began to deal with urban planning problems at a local level within the Spanish political and social context. From this period are the theoretical project The City in Space, and the construction of Walden 7.

Interested in the urban planning problems of the developing countries, Bofill transported a part of his team to Algeria where he collaborated with the government in the urban planning and housing field. His work culminated two years later with the construction of Houari Boumédienne Agricultural Village in the south-eastern part of the country.

In 1971 he formed a complementary team in Paris, in response to the demands of various projects for the French “New Towns”. During this phase, he created projects like La Petite Cathédrale and La Maison d’Abraxas.

From 1979 on, the activities of Bofill’s Taller de Arquitectura took place mainly in France, with the simultaneous construction of four projects: Les Arcades du Lac and Le Viaduc in Versailles; Le Palais d’Abraxas, Le Théâtre and L’Arc in Marne-la-Vallée; Les Echelles du Baroque in the XIV district in Paris; as well as Antigone in Montpellier. His team settled in Paris and worked on the industrialized construction of social housing.

In 2000 Bofill regrouped his activity in Spain. From his headquarters, a former cement factory in the outskirts of Barcelona, Bofill’s Taller has worked on projects which include the schemes for Luxembourg’s Place de l’Europe, New Castellana in Madrid, Boston Central Artery;  large infrastructures for public transport, as the recent Terminal 1 for Barcelona Airport; sports, cultural, and retail facilities in Europe and Asia; both social and Class A residential buildings, from Dakar to Stockholm, from Beijing to Paris; office buildings and headquarters of companies in the US, France, Spain.

Ricardo Bofill Levi passed away, on January 14th, 2022.

CARME PINÓS

Carme Pinós i Desplat graduated with a degree in architecture from the school of Architecture in Barcelona (ETSAB) in 1979. In the mid 1980s the architectural proposals she developed in partnership with Enric Miralles obtained recognition in several architectural competitions. In 1991 she set up her own studio and since then she has combined her activity as an architect with teaching as a guest professor at different universities such as the Graduate Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation de Columbia University (1999), the École Polytechnique Féderale of Lausanne (2001-02), the Graduate  School of Design of Harvard University (2003), the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (2005-06) o la Universitá di Roma Tre (2007-08).

Her built work and projects have been exhibited at several galleries and museums. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris hold models of her projects in their permanent collections. Her work has been published in several monographs (Actar, 1998: Monacelli Press 2004; “Documentos de Arquitectura”, nº 60, 2006). In 2008 she received the National Prize for Architecture and Urban Space from the Catalan Government in recognition of her entire professional career.

 

Pere Joan Ravetllat Mira, Carme Ribas Seix. RAVETLLAT-RIBAS

Pere Joan Ravetllat Mira. Architect. Professor of Projects at the School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB) since 1982. In 1984 he received a Fullbright scholarship to study the "Master of Science of Building Design" at the Columbia University of New York, and graduated in this same university in 1985. Doctor by the UPC in 1994. 

Professor in 2004. Responsible for the V-VI Projects course. Co-editor of the magazine A-30 during the period 1986-88, he has also collaborated in several national and international journals with articles of opinion and own work made, since 1985, with Carme Ribas Seix. He is the author of the book "Blocks of Homes: a contemporary perspective", coauthor of the books "Habitatge i Tipus" and "Habitatge i Context Urbà to Catalan Architecture" and of several monographs on the subject of housing published by the ETSAB.

Carme Ribas Seix. Architect. Professor of Projects at the School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB) since 1987.

From 1996 to 1998, she is a professor of interior projects at the ELISAVA School. Between 1998 and 2001 she is also a Project Lecturer in the degree of Landscaping at the ETSAB.

Between 1981 and 1986 he was architect of the Servei d'Elements i Urban Projects of the Barcelona City Council, where he made several projects related to urban design.

Co-editor of the magazine A-30 during the period 1986-88, she has also published her own work in several national and international journals, made since 1985 with Pere Joan Ravetllat Mira. In 1985 he obtained the Diploma of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia from the Landscape Architecture Course.

Arquitectura y Paisaje SCOB

SCOB Arquitectura y Paisaje were founded by Sergi Carulla and Oscar Blasco in 2005. They are landscape architects. They teach at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura of Barcelona and at the Italian Centre of Architecture in Milan. Their work has been recognised internationally through awards, contests and specialised publications. At present, they investigate landscape through other disciplines that go beyond architecture, such as cinema and literature.

Sergi Carulla Architect. Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona, 1996 Landscape architect. Master de arquitectura del paisaje UPC, 2002 Founder partner of scob arquitectura y paisaje, 2005 Currently teaches in Master in Landscape Architecture of Barcelona and the Italian Centre of Architecture in Milan.

Oscar Blasco Architect. Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona, 1999 Landscape architect. Master de arquitectura del paisaje UPC, 2002 Founder partner of scob arquitectura y paisaje, 2005 Currently teaches in Master in Landscape Architecture of Barcelona and the Italian Centre of Architecture in Milan.

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