Architect

José Rafael Moneo Vallés was born in Tudela (Navarre) in 1937. He Studies in the Madrid Architecture School, and obtains his degree in 1961. In 1970 he becomes Professor of Composition Elements in the Barcelona Architecture School and in 1980 he took over that same professorship in the Madrid School until 1985, when he was designated Chairman of the Graduate School of Design in Harvard University, a post in which he was to remain until 1990. Rafael Moneo is currently the Josep Lluis Sert Professor of Architecture in the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Especially noteworthy among his latest projects is the Kursaal Auditorium and Congress Centre in San Sebastian (1999), the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas (2000), the Cathedral of Los Angeles (2002), the General Archives of Navarre in Pamplona (2003), the Gregorio Marañón Maternal Children’s Hospital in Madrid (2003), the Enlargement of the Bank of Spain in Madrid (2006), the Enlargement of the Prado Museum in Madrid (2007) and the Museum of the Roman Theatre in Cartagena (2008).

Amongst his works currently underway are the Library of Deusto University (2005), the Laboratories for Novartis in Basel, Switzerland (2006) and a Science Laboratory for the Columbia University, New York (2007).
Rafael Moneo’s activity as an architect goes hand in hand with his activity as a speaker in conferences and critic. He is one of the co-founders of the Arquitecturas Bis Journal and his writings have been published in many professional journals and the presentation of his works in exhibitions and conferences has taken him to institutions on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In 2005 he published and translated to various other languages his book titled “Inquietud Teórica y Estrategia Proyectual en la obra de ocho arquitectos contemporáneos” (Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the Work of Eight Contemporary Architects).

Rafael Moneo has been awarded various distinctions, amongst which are the 1996 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2003. He was elected Academician of Fine Arts in 1997, and took possession of that post in early 2005. In 2006 the Superior Council of the Architects Colleges of Spain awarded him with the Spanish Architecture Gold Medal. In 2012 the Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes Prize.

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