Luis Fernández-Galiano   Young architecture floats in a speculative bubble which is as fascinating, foolish and fragile as that sparked by the tulip trade in the 17th century. Though this issue presents diverse European tendencies, none is now as influential as that of the N

Adela García-Herrera   Twenty-eight American screenwriters have recently brought up lawsuits against several different television networks and film studios for 200 million dollars because they feel discriminated against on account of their age. All of them are over 40, and

Older than 25 and younger than 35 years of age, Spain has a full and promising starting line-up, composed of both individuals and collectives that participate in numerous leagues and will appear, more and more often, in European competitions. In a pa

The Vallés architecture school brought together the Catalans Rafael Aranda (1961), Carme Pigem (1962) and Ramón Vilalta (1960), three 1987 graduates who, withdrawn from the Olympic impulse that boosted the careers of their Barcelona colleagues, have

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The church and the town hall are the only public buildings of Riudaura, a small village with a population under 500 near Olot. The town wanted to enlarge its public realm with a new space for culture, leisure and sports activities. The site chosen wa

For Eduardo Arroyo life is a voyage, and the studio he set up in 1989 under the name of NO.MAD has followed him everywhere: from its origins in Amsterdam to Rotterdam, where he worked with Rem Koolhaas, and from Paris where he collaborated with Jean

NO.MAD   France   This project for Saint Denis, on Réunion Island, is based on an interpretation of city structures as living textures able to recombine and mutate their codes through procedures analogous to those of molecular biology. To address the cultural multipli

The building boom that the reunification of Germany brought to Berlin ensured work for the practice set up in 1992 by the American Frank Barkow (Kansas City, 1957) and the German Regine Leibinger (Stuttgart, 1963). Graduates of architecture schools o

Barkow Leibinger   Germany   The grid of farming plots surrounding the edges of the city of Stuttgart provided the conceptual model for enlarging the premises of a high-tech machinery manufacturer. The flexibility needed to adapt to unforeseen future needs explains the organizat

Turning necessity into a virtue seems to be the motto of Arno Hans Brandlhuber (1964) and Georg Kniess (1961) in confronting the obstinate reticence of German investors toward anything proposed by architects without extensive experience. The inflexib

Arno Brandlhuber, Bernd Kniess   Germany   Ehrenfeld offers, amidst workshops and industrial warehouses, the easy-going and carefree environment that creators and freelance professionals look for in order to live and work under one same roof. In this Cologne neighborhood, the New Loft buildin

The New York studio of Richard Meier initially brought together the Dutchman John Bosch (1960) and the Brit Gordon Haslett (1962). Then, while still in the city of skyscrapers, in 1989, they began to work as a team. In 1993, their first prize win in

Bosch Haslett Architects   Holanda   Near the entrance to the ‘Uithof’ – the campus of Utrecht – rises the Ronald McDonald House, a pavilion that provides accommodations for the families of children confined to the university’s pediatric hospital. Four rectangular concrete trays, each c

With its proverbial excess of licensed architects and the country’s building activity largely centered around the preservation of its heritage, Italy does not seem to offer the best conditions for starters. In spite of these difficulties – aggravated

UdA | Architecture and Interior Design   Italy   On a slope cultivated with fruit trees and endowed with views of the Alps, a two-story rural construction needed enlargement through rooms that would complete the day zones of the initial dwelling, on a plot of land occupied by a former barn. The pro

Many teams have their origin in the studio of a third architect, and in the case of Adam Caruso (1962) and Peter St. John (1959), associated since 1990, this is Florian Beigel, under whom both once worked and with whom both share an interest in the a

Caruso St John Architects   United Kingdom   Located some 200 kilometers away from London, the town of Walsall seems dominated by the typical red brick architecture of the leather manufacturing industry that once made this part of England famous. In the featureless context of its pedestrian zon

Building and planting seem to be for Edouard François part of the same process, as the projects of this Frenchman born in Boulogne-Billancourt in 1957 are but the substrata of three-dimensional gardens that mediate between the users and the environme

Édouard François   France   Situated in the center of Montpellier, along the Lez River, this 64-unit residential building lets the vegetation of a nearby park spread to it, its facade becoming the geological substratum of a vertical garden. With a curved floor plan, the structu

The university of Göteborg is the common denominator among the members of Grön, who all coincided there either as teachers or students. Four natives of the peninsula group that composes Scandinavia – the Norwegian Fredrik Lund (1959), the Dane Henrie

studio grön arkitekter   Sweden   The proposal to replace a restaurant that had burned down twice in Sweden’s very first public park revolves around the construction of a fretwork gallery creating a covered transition space between the interior on one hand, and the wonderful greenery

Without relinquishing the aspects that have brought international recognition to fellow compatriots of previous generations, the Swiss Pascale Guignard (1969) and Stefan Saner (1965) remain faithful to the tradition of their alma mater, Zürich’s arch

Guignard & Saner   Switzerland   The creation of holy spaces forms part of the infrastructure planned from the very start for Switzerland's road network. Along the highway that crosses Europe from Hamburg to Rome, where it passes the canton of Uri, a plot of land situated between th

Not only in the movies is Paris a place of encounter par excellence. It is also there that Frenchwoman Dominique Jakob (1966) and New Zealander Brendan MacFarlane (1961) met, set up a practice in 1992, and joined the studios of Marin & Trottin and Pa

Jakob + MacFarlane   France   Incorporated from the beginning into the list of Parisian architectural icons, the Centre Pompidou is with its mechanistic framework a building in which it is difficult to intervene. Straying from the museum’s vocabulary, the project for a restaurant

In 1997 the Pritzker Prize fell upon the Norwegian Sverre Fehn, reminding us of the high-quality architecture to be found in one of the most remote, most unpopulous regions of the north. More recently, a rather different kind of honor – granted by th

Jensen & Skodvin   Norway   An abrupt terrain of fiords and rocks is the jewel of Norway’s natural heritage. For this reason it has been deemed necessary to provide the most frequented routes in the area with a series of service outposts. Hence, besides the waste bins and infor

The constant rise of student mobility has increased the number of teams including architects with different nationalities, such as the tandems of Sauerbruch & Hutton in Berlin or Zaera & Moussavi in London and Tokyo. In the early nineties New York’s

NUR Architektur   Austria   In the austrian city of Graz, a corner lot surrounded by residential blocks and animal feed silos was chosen by a ceramic products distributor as the site of its new showroom headquarters. The building asserts its independence in such a heterogeneous

Architectural partnerships formed by classmates and couples, married or not, are quite frequent. More rare is the team based on fraternal ties, such as that which unites Manuel (1963) and Francisco Xavier (1964) Aires Mateus. Graduates of their nativ

Aires Mateus   Portugal   At the center of Coimbra’s university campus, a triangular-shaped parcel bordering a pedestrians-only street in the south was chosen as the location for a student dormitory. With the forest as background, the building joins the silhouette of towers t

The english Gerard Maccreanor (1961) and Richard Lavington (1962) have been working mainly in Holland since 1992, when they won the Europan competition with a residential project for the town of Zaanstad and set out to construct it. Situated on the e

MaccreanorLavington Architects   United Kingdom   Forming part of one of the squares with a central garden that characterize London’s public space, a neutral facade unifies what really are two different buildings in a single volume. Commissioned by a film producer on one hand and a new media art age

The architects Helena (1963) and Hrvoje Njiric (1960) went to live and work in Graz, following their graduation from the University of Zagreb, to sit out the war that tore the old Yugoslavia apart. Several teaching contracts with the university here

Njiric Arhitekti   Slovenia   Built along a highway as an outlet for do-it-yourself hardware items, the Baumaxx superstore in the Slovenian town of Maribor has an extensive roof garden that evokes a landscape of hills. Four large billboard structures rising overhead affirm the bu

Architecture is one of the few professions that still is – in the best artisan tradition – passed on from parents to their children. After finishing his studies in Zürich’s ETH, Valerio Olgiati (1958) of Chur had immediate professional experience wor

Valerio Olgiati   Switzerland   A thousand meters above sea level, in a mountain area famous for its ski resort, a former mansion plastered in yellow was scheduled to be demolished. Rudolf Olgiati, a local architect who had been gathering together objects of the area’s traditional

With the shadow of Joze Plecnik cast out over every corner of its capital, Slovenia is with its recent separation from the Yugoslav Republic living a moment as culturally promising as that which took place when a 1920 plebiscite declared national ind

Sadar + Vuga   Slovenia   Presiding over a newly created plaza, the Chamber of Commerce of Ljubljana rises in the northern area of the city like a built icon of Slovenia’s incipient mercantilism. Conceived as an Exchange fórum through which to stimulate capital growth, it uti

The crisis that shook the Finnish economy in 1992 put an end to the ephemeral dream of a group of students that went by the name of Monark, who saw their proposal for the Finnish pavilion at the Universal Exposition of Seville carried out before they

Matti Sanaksenaho   Finland   Too small to be a building and excessively large to be a sculpture, it is impossible to define the ‘Empty Space’ in functional terms. Surrounded by birch trees, this white, patinated cube offers itself as a place of meditation for resident artists of

The tower of a former sugar refinery, converted into his own studio, is an example of one of the ‘discoveries’ that seem to lie behind every project of Juan Domingo Santos (1961). A graduate of Seville’s architecture school and a professor in Granada

Juan Domingo Santos   Spain   The San Isidro plant is one of the sugar factories that was erected just outside Granada in the 19th century. Situated close to an irrigation ditch and surrounded by railway tracks, its sheds speak of the production sequence, with a chain of silos, p