Rafael Moneo Biography, Buildings and Best Books

Rafael Moneo (born 1937) is a Spanish architect, teacher and critic, and the first Spaniard to receive the Pritzker Prize, in 1996. His buildings respond closely to place and history, from the brick arches of the National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida to the glass prisms of the Kursaal in San Sebastián, and he has taught for decades in Madrid, Barcelona and at Harvard, where he chaired the department of architecture.

Tudela, Madrid and Utzon

José Rafael Moneo Vallés was born in Tudela, Navarre, in 1937. He studied at the Madrid School of Architecture, graduating in 1961, and worked with Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza and then with Jørn Utzon in Denmark on the Sydney Opera House. A fellowship at the Spanish Academy in Rome followed. In the 1960s he collaborated with Fernando Higueras on the competition design for what is now the Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute in Madrid.

Mérida and the Spanish works

The National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida (1986) built new arches of Roman-sized brick over the excavated city and made Moneo internationally known. It was followed by the extension of Atocha station in Madrid, the Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation in Palma, the Kursaal Congress Centre in San Sebastián, two translucent cubes by the sea, and the extension of the Prado Museum around the cloister of San Jerónimo (2007).

Teaching and international work

From 1985 to 1990 Moneo chaired the department of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and he has continued to teach there. His buildings abroad include the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles (2002) and the Museum of the University of Navarra in Pamplona (2014).

Recognition

Moneo received the Pritzker Prize in 1996, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2003 and the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale in 2021. His lectures and essays, including Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies, are widely read.