Architectural Record Visits Spain

The July issue of Architectural Record is dedicated to new museum buildings. In addition to my article on the Archaeological Museum by Francisco Mangado that appears on the cover, the magazine's web page features two additional museums in Spain that I presented to the editors, both recognized in the XI Biennial of Spanish Architecture and Urbanism, as reported in my blog entry of April 19th.

The two museum are:

The Water Museum
Juan Domingo Santos, Architect

Lanjarón (Granada)

Photo © Fernando Alda

Can Framis Museum
Jordi Badia, Eatudio BAAS

Barcelona

(See also my blog on Feb. 17, 2010)

Followers of Spanish architecture shouldn't miss Suzanne Stephen's review of Peter Eisenman's City of Culture in Santiago de Compostela in Record's June issue. Her article concludes:

"Although it is too early to fully evaluate a complex still very much under construction, already it has become a lightning rod for debate regarding its high cost, excessive space, and ambiguous program.... As it ages, it will no doubt lose its rawness, but probably keep its brute energy. The gesture is so defiant. Its brazen monumentality and unsettling scale ravenously explore the difference between artifice and nature. Time will reveal its significance."

Added July 11, 2011: More Spanish features in Record:

Record has just published a web featurette on Oscar Niemeyer's Cultural Center in Áviles, on the northern Spanish coast (also featured in my blog entry of December 11, 2010).

And the web section of last April's Record Houses has a featurette on Antón García Abril's Truffle House, including the amusing construction video. It was also a Snapshot in the April issue (also featured in my blog entry of March 26, 2011).

All are projects I pitched to Record; the web is adding variety to architectural coverage but has managed to put us all to work for free.

Added August 15, 2011:
Suzanne Stephens reports on John Hejduk's little-known Trisca Center in Santiago de Compostela, completed in 2003, on the Record web page this month, while the August Snapshot page is dedicated to Jürgen Mayer H's Metropoli Pergola in Seville.

Public Housing Gets the Prize

The awards of the XI Biennial of Spanish Architecture and Urbanism were announced early this month.

The event is organized by the central government's housing office, architects' professional associations and other sponsors. A jury headed by the architects Félix Arranz and Joaquín Sabaté chose 40 finalists and prize winners in several categories from among 734 entries, over twice the number of previous editions and an all-time record.

Jury members included Lluis Clotet, the urban planner José María Ezquiaga, Manuel Gallego, Belinda Tato of Ecosistema Urbana, and Llàtzer Moix, architecture critic for La Vanguardia newspaper in Barcelona, among others.

Prize for Architecture
Subsidized housing, Mieres (Region of Asturias)
Zigzag Arquitectura (Bernardo Angelini + David Casino)
(Pictured above)

Mentions:
Residential development in Caramoñina, Santiago de Compostela
Víctor López Cotelo

 House in Paderne (Province of Lugo)
Carlos Quintáns Eiras
(Pictured above)


Special Recognition:
Álava Archeological Museum, Vitoria (Province of Álava)
Francisco Mangado

Museum of Water, Lanjarón (Province of Granada)
Juan Domingo Santos
(Pictured above)

Can Framis Museum, Barcelona
Jordi Badía
  

Young Architects' Prize
Rowing Center, Alange (Province of Badajoz)
José María Sánchez García 
(Pictured above)

Mentions:
Mercat de Ferreríes Civic Center, Tortosa (Province of Tarragona)
Josep Camps + Olga Felip

Municipal Environmente Services Headquarters, Zaragoza
Jaime Magén + Francisco Javier Magén

Prize for Subsidized Public Housing
22 Apartments for renters under 35, El Rastro, Madrid
Mónica Alberola, Luis Díaz-Mauriño + Consuelo Martorell
(Pictured above)

Mentions:
Housing block in Salou (Province of Tarragona)
Toni Gironés

Student housing, Bellaterra Campus, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Eduard Bru

Prize for Urbanism
Municipal Plan, Montmeló (Province of Barcelona)
Jornet, Llop + Pastor

Mentions:
Port of Malpica (Province of A Coruña)
Juan Creus + Covadonga Carrasco

The Munch Area, Oslo, Norway
Juan Herreros Architects

Special Recognition:
Waterfront Promenade, Poniente Beach, Benidorm (Province of Alicante)
Carlos Ferrater

Prize for Research
Ex Aequo
Media-TIC Building, Barcelona
Enric Ruíz Geli

Territorial Plan for Housing in Cataluña
Josep María Vilanova +Ricard Pie

Mentions:
"Esto no es un solar" Program, Zaragoza
Patrizia di Monte + Ignacio Grávalos

Font de la Mina Library, Sant Adrià del Besós (Barcelona
Alfonso Soldevila

For pictures of more winners,
see the Arquitectura Viva web page

FAD Winners 2010

As I announced in July, the winners of the annual FAD Awards were presented this month in Barcelona.

The Architecture Prize went to the Grupo Aranea (Francisco Leiva and Marta García) for their High School in Rafal, Alicante (featured in a photo in my July post).

José María Sánchez received a Special Mention for his Sports Center in Guijo de Granadilla, Cáceres, a project I have published several times.

The prize for Public Spaces was awarded to Carlos Ferrater and Xaxier Marti for their Beachfront Promenade in Benidorm, also in the province of Alicante.

In the category of Interior Design, a bar in Oviedo, Spain, I+DRINK. by Merche Alcalá and Marion Dönneweg,was recognized, and in the category of Ephemeral Spaces, Weltliteratur, an exhibition in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon designed by Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus.

Among the Prizes of Opinion awarded by the public attending the ceremony, Jordi Baas received two, one in the category of Architecture for his Museum Can Framis in Barcelona, which I published earlier this year, and another for his CP House in the category of Interiors.

Photo: Beachfront Promenade, Benidorm by Carlos Ferrater and Xavier Marti. Photo © Alejo Bagué/Ascer.

Museum Can Framis in Barcelona

My article on Jordi Badia´s Museum Can Framis in the District 22@ of Barcelona appeared in the January - February isssue of architektur.aktuell.

In the Rough
architektur.aktuell 358 - 359, 2010-01-02, January - February 2010, pages 76 - 89.
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The building offers a curious variation on Barcelona's preoccupation with urban form, as it preserves, as if in amber, a vestige of the city's highly unplanned industrial past, set incongruously in the heart of its biggest new planning area, the District 22@, where it is surrounded by large new commercial projects by the likes of David Chipperfield, Dominique Perrault, Enric Ruiz-Geli, Carlos Ferrater and others.

Photo © Pedro Pegenaute