José María Sánchez García

For the past five or six years I've been proud to introduce a number of young Spanish architects in Architectural Record's annual Design Vanguard issue, which features architects of promise from around the world. This year we present the work of José María Sánchez García (Architectural Record, December 2009, pages 84 - 87).

His best-known design to date is a center for the development of rural sports in the Extremadura region. It is a circular building, 2,000 feet in circumference, that floats between the trees on a peninsula overlooking a reservoir (my photo).

I wrote another feature on the work for the Viennese magazine architektur.aktuell (in English and German):
Ein Kreis in den Bäunmen - A Circle in the Trees
Center for Recreational and Sports Activities, Guijo de Granadilla (Extremadura), Spain by José Sánchez García.
architektur.aktuell, 2009-09, September 15, 2009, pages 60 - 71.
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From the story:
Sánchez García declares that the greatest influence on his work has been Alberto Campo Baeza, who is in turn a disciple of the Madrid master Alejandro de la Sota (1913 - 1996). In its combination of Miesian austerity and rough but perfectly-controlled industrial materials, the Ring is true to De la Sota's restrained, functional and yet poetic design legacy. But at the same time, in its monumental, elementary geometry and scale it acts more like a work of land art than a conventional building, operating at a territorial scale. The experience of strolling around its circular roof terrace, in all its rural modesty, is comparable only to visions like Le Corbusier's megastructure for Algiers.

Other Spanish firms in past Design Vanguard issues:
Cadaval and Solà-Morales, Barcelona, 2008
Estudio Entresitio, Madrid 2007
BmasC Architects, Ávlia 2006
Antón García-Abril. Madrid 2004 (summary)