Iñaki Abalos, curator of the Spanish Pavilion at 2014 Venice Biennale

On Friday, October 4 was given to know the name of Iñaki Abalos, director of the Department of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard and professor at the School of Architecture of Madrid, as Spain Pavilion curator of the International Biennial 2014 Venice Architecture.

Together with Abalos work a team of curators formed by Lluís Ortega, professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and visiting professor at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires, and Immaculate E. Maluenda and Enrique Encabo, critics, independent publishers and associate professors of the European University of Madrid. Under the slogan 'Fundamentals' will be held between June 7 and November 23, 2014, the next edition of the Biennale directed by Rem Koolhaas in which the national pavilions will be invited to address the issue '1914-2014 Absorbing Modernity '.

With this approach, Iñaki Abalos work on the central idea of "Interior": "No hay arquitectura sin interior: no hay una idea de arquitectura si no existe un pensamiento del interior en todos los órdenes. El interior habla de espacio, y el espacio es, por definición, el tema de la arquitectura" y desarrollandola con una investigación "de distintas obras de arquitectura contemporánea española que evidencian una de las particularidades distintivas de su identidad y base esencial: su necesidad de entenderla o interpretarla como una construcción ambiental".

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IÑAKI ÁBALOS

Iñaki Abalos, (San Sebastián, 1956) graduated from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid ETSAM(1978), before going on to become a Doctor of Architecture, PHD (1991), and Professor of Architectural Project Design at he ETSAM. In 2009 he was Kenzo Tange Professor in Harvard University and since 2010 has been a guest professor at the Graduate School of Design (GSD).

A founder member of Ábalos&Herreros (1984-2007) and of Ábalos+Sentkiewicz arquitectos (since 2007), he has sat on the scientific committee of the Study Center of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal (since 2005) and on the management board of the Barcelona Institute of Architecture (since 2008).

He is the director of the Laboratorio de Técnicas y Paisajes Contemporáneos (Madrid, since 2002), and in 2009 the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) awarded him its international membership. He has taught at the Architectural Association (London), the EPF (Lausanne) and at the universities of Columbia, Princeton and Cornell.

Ábalos is the author of Le Corbusier. Rascacielos (Ayuntamiento de Madrid, 1988), Tower and office (The MIT Press, Cambridge [Mass.], 2003) and Natural-artificial (ExitLMI, Madrid, 1999), with Juan Herreros; and The good life (Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2000), the two volumes of Atlas pintoresco (Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2005 and 2007), and the monograph Alejandro de la Sota (Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, Barcelona, 2009; with Josep Llinàs and Moisés Puente). He also edited Naturaleza y artificio (Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona,2009).

AS+. ÁBALOS+SENTKIEWICZ ARQUITECTOS

Ábalos+Sentkiewicz arquitectos, AS+. Madrid-based architecture practice was founded and led by Iñaki Ábalos and Renata Sentkiewicz in 2006. The practice has local offices in Cambridge (USA) and Shanghai (China).

Iñaki Ábalos and Renata Sentkiewicz have taught in prestigious university centres such as GSD-Harvard University, Architectural Association, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, and ETSAM, combining academic, professional and research activities. Iñaki Ábalos has been Chair of the Department of Architecture at GSD Harvard University and RIBA International Fellowship 2009 (Royal Institute of British Architects). Abalos is currently Chaired Professor at ETSAM.

The projects and built work of Abalos+Sentkiewicz AS+ are internationally recognized and have been the subject of individual exhibitions and many collective exhibitions in the most prestigious centres: GSD Harvard, AA-London, Pavillon de l’Arsenale-Paris, MoMA-NYC (5 built works in three different exhibitions: Light construction, ON Site, Groundswell), Chicago Architecture Biennial, Biennale di Architettura di Venezia, etc. This prestige also reflects in the 40 awards received (25 of them first prizes) in architecture competitions. Another 46 awards have been given to different research and design activities, 19 of them to Built Works. Their professional work has been collected in 12 monographs and their theoretical work has been compiled through 12 books. Critic William Curtis has chosen one work of the firm, the Pavilion in the Retiro Park, as one of the three best works built in Spain during the last 30 years.