Manuel de Solà-Morales DIES

Manuel de Solà-Morales. (Vitoria, January 8, 1939 - Barcelona, ​​February 27, 2012) Architect and city planner, most dedicated to urban design matters. Former student of Ludovico Quaroni in Rome and Josep Lluis Sert at Harvard. Doctor in Architecture (Univ. of Barcelona), Economics (Univ. of Barcelona), Master City Planning (Univ. of Harvard).

Chair Professor of Urbanism at the School of Architecture of Barcelona. Founder and head, since 1968, of the Laboratori d’Urbanisme de Barcelona, a research group in urban morphology. Visiting courses at Cambridge UK, New York, Santiago de Chile, Lisbon, Harvard, Leuven, Milan, Naples, Caracas, Coimbra, Paris, Nanjing, Shanghai, Melbourne, Copenhaguen, etc…
Professor of the Master Course “Periphery as a project” (1991-95).
Director of the Barcelona School of Architecture from 1994 to 1998.
Fellow of Cambridge University, UK (1984).
Member of the Academie Française de l’Architecture (2003).
Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Leuven (2004).

Professional office in Barcelona. Influent on Barcelona urbanism, at the olympic works of 1992,  specially with the master ideas for the sea front transformation, and the realisation of the wide known “Moll de la Fusta”. Past urban projects for various European cities (Berlin, Salzburg, Naples, Rotterdam, Antwerpen, Thessaloniki, Genova and Trieste). Recently, he has carried out the transformation of the port area in Saint-Nazaire (France), the Stationsplein in Leuven (Belgium), the public space Winschoterkade in Groningen (Holland) and the Paseo Atlantico in Porto (Portugal). In Spain, realisation of the center “L’Illa Diagonal” in Barcelona (with Rafael Moneo), and the housing project “La Sang”, at the old center of Alcoi, Alicante.

Nowadays, he is executing new urban plans and public housing in Sant Andreu (Barcelona), Torressana (Terrassa, Barcelona) and El Carme (Reus, Tarragona); the renewal of the center of Arnhem (Holland); the seaside walk in Scheveningen (The Hague, the Netherlands); the renovation of the central area “Operaplein” in Antwerp (Belgium); and the “ multimodal pole” in Pau (France).

Author of many studies, books, articles and exhibitions.

Publisher of book series “Materiales de la ciudad” and “Ciencia urbanística”. Founder and editor of the magazines “Arquitecturas Bis”, “UR, Urbanismo-Revista”. Collaborator of “Lotus”, “Casabella”, “Perspecta”, “Archis”, “Daidalos”, “Quaderns d’Arquitectura”, etc.

Awards: “March a la investigación”, 1970; “Puig i Cadafalch”, 1981; “Nacional de Urbanismo”, 1983, “Ciutat de Barcelona”, 1986; “Bienal de Arquitectura española”, 1994; “F.A.D”., 1995; “Iber FAD”, 1999;  “Narcis Monturiol”, 2000; “Grand Prix d’Urbanisme, Europe”, 2000,Catalunya Urbanisme, 2004. Designer and producer of  “URBATAS”.

José Juan Barba (1964) is an architect, graduated from ETSA Madrid (1991), and holds a Doctorate in Architecture from ETSA Madrid, awarded Cum laude for his thesis Inventions: New York vs. Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Piranesi (2004). He received a special mention in the National Awards for Completion of Studies (1991) and served as an advisor to various NGOs until 1997. He founded his studio in Madrid in 1992 (www.josejuanbarba.com). 

Barba is an architecture critic and has been the director of METALOCUS magazine since 1999. Since 1998, he has directed the International Architecture Magazine METALOCUS (bilingual, Spanish/English), which has been recognized with multiple national and international awards.

He is a Full Professor at the University of Alcalá, leading the project line of the Habilitation Master's Architecture and City, responsible for several courses in Theory and Criticism, heading the Urban Planning area of the Department of Architecture, and participating in the research group Architecture, History, City, and Landscape at UAH. He has been invited to numerous architecture and urbanism forums, including the II Forum of Mexican Cities World Heritage: Urban Development, History, and Modernity, organized by the Pan-American Committee for Urban Development and Historical Heritage, and the World Urban Development Forum (FMDU) in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. He has also participated in the International Architecture and Urbanism Conferences from the perspective of women architects, and has lectured at prestigious national and international universities, including the National Building Museum (Washington, DC), Roma TRE, Politecnico di Milano, UPMF Grenoble, ETSA Madrid, ETSA Barcelona, University of Thessaly (Volos), UNAM Mexico, the Faculty of Architecture Montevideo, schools of architecture in Medellín, Quito-Ecuador, Alicante, Málaga, Granada, Seville, A Coruña, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico, IE School, Universidad Europea Madrid, UCJC Madrid, ESARQ-UIC Barcelona, or Università Degli Studi di Genova.

Barba has extensive professional experience in architecture, urban planning, landscape design, and territorial recovery. He has received numerous awards, including the First Prize for Gran Vía Posible for Delirious Gran Vía (Madrid), the River Interpretation Center (Zamora), exhibited at the World Architecture Festival (Barcelona 2008), Santa Bárbara Park (Toledo), the Erich Degner Architecture Prize 1995 promoted by the BBVA Foundation, and his Day Care Center for the Elderly project, featured in Volume 3 of the COAM Madrid Architecture Guide (2007). His work has been published in numerous national and international books and magazines.

He was also Maître de Conférences at IUG-UPMF Grenoble (2013–14), in a position obtained through a European competition. His work has been published internationally. He regularly serves on academic juries, including the editorial competition of Quaderns magazine (2011), as a selector for the Mies van der Rohe Awards (2007–2026), as juror for EUROPAN13 Spain (2015–16), TRANSFER in Zurich (2019), and was invited to participate in the Venice Biennale 2016 as part of the exhibition Spaces of Exception / Spazi d’Eccezione.

He has published several books, including The Dark Line. michele&miquel, dA Vision Design (2024), CONGRESO ANYWAY. The City of Cities (2020), #Positions (2016), and Inventions: New York vs. Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Piranesi (2015). He has contributed to other publications such as Public Space Gran Vía. The Tourism City (2020), Spaces of Exception / Spazi d’Eccezione (2016), La mansana de la discordia (2015), and Contemporary Architecture of Japan: New Territories (2015), as well as chapters in numerous books including Architects: A Professional Challenge (2009), 21st Century Architectures (2007), Ruta de la Plata, New Conquerors of Space (2019), and The Tourism City (2020).

Selected awards include:

- “PIERRE VAGO” ICAC. International Committee of Art Critics Award, London, 2005
- “PANAYIOTI MIXELI AWARD,” SADAS-PEA, award for the promotion of architecture, Athens, 2005
- “SANTIAGO AMÓN” AWARD, award for the promotion of architecture, COAM Madrid, 2000
- FAD Award 07, Ephemeral Interventions, First Prize, M.C. Escher Exhibition, Arquin-FAD, Barcelona, 2007
- World Architecture Festival, Center for Research and Interpretation of the Rivers, Tera, Esla, and Órbigo, Finalist, Barcelona, 2008
- Gran Vía Posible, First Prize, Delirious Gran Vía, Madrid, 2010
- Reform of the Río Segura Surroundings, Award, Murcia, 2010