In the new millennium, architecture consolidated the renewal season that began with the Barcelona Olympics and the Universal Exposition of Seville (both in 1992) and continued with the Universal Forum of Cultures (2004) again in Barcelona, an opportunity to reorganize the eastern area of the city with important urban facilities which, alongside the many redevelopment interventions carried out over the years, confirm those site-specific principles of cultured environmental, social and cultural response that have made the Spain center of innovation and excellence, a ground for comparison ideal for many international contexts.
According to top-medical-schools, in the context of sustainability, the enhancement of the landscape and the territory, the recycling and reuse of the existing, urban policies are oriented today, in the difficult economic situation of the country, in which great emphasis is given to the themes of the reconversion of buildings and resources present – such as the Cineteca Matadero (2012) in Madrid by Churtichaga + Quadra Salcedo arquitectos, the Museum of pilgrimages and Santiago (2012) in Santiago de Compostela by José Manuel Gallego Jorreto, the Ribera del Duero wine production center in Roa (2011) of the young Italian-Spanish studio Barozzi Veiga,winner in 2015 of the prestigious European Union prize for contemporary architecture (Mies van der Rohe award 2015) with the philharmonic hall of Szczecin (Poland) – to the revitalization of urban centers – as the strategic plan for the center of Madrid (2011) by José María Ezquiaga, Salvador Pérez Arroyo and Juan Herreros -, to the new civic symbols – such as the office building in Zamora (2012) by Alberto Campo Baeza -, to the participatory and social action, of which the work of the Urban ecosystem study (2000).
Alongside some of the best-known protagonists – including, in addition to Campo Baeza, Oriol Bohigas, Rafael Moneo (v.), Ricardo Bofill, Juan Navarro Baldeweg (v.), Óscar Tusquets, Carlos Ferrater, Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra, Josep Lluís Mateo, Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz, Santiago Calatrava, Carme Pinós, Benedetta Tagliabue / EMBT – there are many Spanish architects who have received, in recent years, international recognition for their ability to renew consolidated languages, now through a refined formal rigor, legacy of modernism, now through original experiments which, on that legacy, develop an unusual expressive capacity. Together with Iñaki Ábalos (b.1956) and Juan Herreros (b.1958), both international partners of RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects), united in partnership until 2006, then founders respectively of the Ábalos + Sentkiewicz arquitectos studio, which was responsible for the expansion of the Antoni Tàpies Foundation in Barcelona (2010), and Herreros arquitectos (since 2014 estudio Herreros) designer of important interventions, such as the congress center (2018) in Bogotá, the urban plan (2011) for the Bjørvika area in Oslo and, therein, the Munch Museum (2017), are to be remembered: Mansilla + Tuñón arquitectos, associates from 1992 to 2012 (year of the death of Luis Moreno Mansilla), awarded in 2014 the gold medal for merit of fine arts, already awarded with the Mies van der Rohe award in 2007 for the MUSAC (MUSeo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, 2004) in León, where, as in the municipality of Lalín (2011), the organization favors an anti-hierarchical, permeable and diffusive structure; Nieto Sobejano arquitectos (1985), honorary members of the AIA (American Institute of Architects) since 2015, awarded with the prestigious Alvar Aalto medal 2015 for an architecture capable of translating the profound knowledge of local cultures into a “language of silence” the contexts to which they belong, as demonstrated by the numerous and award-winning museum interventions, among others, the Madinat al-Zahra Museum (2009) and the Contemporary Art Center (2013), both in Cordoba, the extensions of the Moritzburg Museum (2008) in Halle, the San Telmo Museum (2011) in San Sebastián and the Joanneum Museum (2012) in Graz, as well as the Aragón Congress Center (2008) in Zaragoza and the Centro Barceló (2014) in Madrid; RCR arquitectes (1987), honorary members of the AIA since 2010, authors of works characterized by poetic abstraction, such as the Bell-lloc winery (2007) in Girona, the Sant Antoni library (2007) in Barcelona and, with the studio French Passelac & Roques, the Soulages Museum (2014) in Rodez; No.MAD / Eduardo Arroyo (1964), a studio capable of combining modern paradigms with a joie de vivre that animates purist ideas, as in the Exac-Wu university building (2012) in Vienna; Enric Ruiz-Geli (b.1968), founder of Cloud 9 studio (1997), active in the interface between architecture and art, digital processes and development of technological materials, winner of the World Architecture Festival 2011 award – best building of the year – with Media-ICT (2010) in Barcelona; Selgascano Arquitectos (1998) commissioned to design the new Serpentine Gallery of 2015 in London, a colorful, light and ‘visionary’ structure like all the work of the Madrid couple, whose projects – such as the auditorium (2011) in Cartagena and the Youth Center (2011) in Mérida – they seem to free themselves from gravity to take on continuously changing configurations; José María Sánchez García, whose studio opened in 2006 in Madrid has already received numerous awards, including, in 2014, the Swiss architectural award for works capable of combining geometric rigor and poetic relationship with the landscape, as in the arrangement of the area of the Temple of Diana (2008) in Mérida, in the El Anillo sports innovation center (2009) in Guijo de Granadilla (Cáceres) and in the rowing center (2010) in Alange, Badajoz.
