Luis Fernández-Galiano

There are a handful of publications that I find very appealing but also too expensive to purchase brand new: A+U, GA, and JA from Japan; and Arquiectura Viva and El Croquis from Spain. Every now and then I come across used copies of these and then snap them up no matter the subject or date. A few months ago I found this 2006 yearbook from AV, a hefty issue that reviews the year in architecture and highlights 24 works "that summarize the year in Spain." (Like the other yearbooks, this one came out early in the year, so more accurately it reviews 2005.) Although the bulk of the issue is devoted to the thorough documentation of the two-dozen Spanish buildings, some essays in the front allow editor Fernández-Galiano to look at significant events and projects outside of Spain. (One essay, "Troubled Times," is available on the AV website: https://arquitecturaviva.com/articles/un-tiempo-convulso-3)

The 24 buildings are broken down into six themes that basically align with typology: Stage Landmarks, Art Foundations, Public Interest, Leisure Luxuries, Welfare Culture, and Lifestyles. The cover montages a couple of the 24 buildings: Frank Gehry's Hotel Marqués de Riscal (Álava) and Artengo, Menis & Pastrana's Palacio de Congresos (Tenerife). Like these, the other projects span between big names (Calatrava, Chipperfield, Moneo, Nouvel, Siza) and lesser known architects from Spain (EMBT, Mansilla & Tunon, RCR, etc.). It's a solid collection that benefits from the large color photographs, drawings, and Fernández-Galiano's descriptions.

That might seem like enough, but the projects are followed by the hefty "A Year in the World" section with more contributions from Fernández-Galiano: Press Covers, Twelve Months and Four Seasons, The Year in Twelve Buildings (inside and outside Spain), Images Kaleidoscope, and Distinctions and Disappearances. The subjects for the months and seasons are diverse: important books, the centennial of Albert Speer's birth, London's selection for the 2012 Olympics, the "superficial character of the latest architecture," Philip Johnson (who died in 2005 at the age of 98), and Thom Mayne's Pritzker Architecture Prize, among others. All told, it's an impressive and beautifully presented roundup.… (mehr)

Spain's national pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2012 exhibited 15 recent projects in 15 cities, designed by 5 architecture firms, and documented by 5 photographers. The figures on the cover are the architecture students who held the models during the Biennale, an act that added a theatrical flourish to Spain's contribution. That flourish is gone in this exhibition catalog (outside of the cover and an introductory essay by the editor), but the amazing projects remain. And such is the value in the book, which highlights the consistently high quality of Spanish architecture today, be it Mansill + Tuñón, Nieto Sobejano, or my favorites RCR Arquitectes. Luis Fernández-Galiano is editor at Arquitectura Viva, and that publication's thorough documentation of projects is evident here in the photos (by Roland Halbe, Hisao Suzuki, and others) and drawings accompanying the text.… (mehr)