Rafael Moneo, Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the Biennale Architettura 2021

The Spanish architect, educator, critic and theoretician Rafael Moneo is the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, that will open to the public on Saturday May 22nd 2021 (preview May 20th and 21st).

The decision was made by the Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, upon recommendation of the Curator of the Biennale Architettura 2021, Hashim Sarkis.

Rafael Moneo. Photograph by Juan Carlos Vega.

«Rafael Moneo is one of the most transformative architects of his generation. As a practitioner, and through his broad array of buildings, like the Kursaal Auditorium, The Prado Museum, the Atocha Train Station, and the Los Angeles Cathedral, he has highlighted the ability of every architectural project to respond to contingencies of site and program while transcending them.

As an educator, he has rigorously guided several generations of architects towards architecture as a vocation. As a scholar, he has combined his visual prowess and analytic rigors to help reinterpret some of the most canonical historic buildings with fresh eyes.

As a critic of the contemporary scene, he has written on emerging phenomena and key projects and has established some of the most important dialogues on the present scene of architecture with colleagues from around the world.

Throughout his long career, Moneo has maintained a poetic prowess, reminding us of the powers of architectural form to express, shape but also to endure. He has also been tenaciously committed to architecture as an act of building.

The Golden Lion for lifetime achievement is only befitting for the architect who took part in the Giudecca housing project of 1983, who won the competition for a new Cinema Palace at the Lido di Venezia in 1991, and who has drawn many a lesson for architecture from Venice.»

Hashim Sarkis.

To celebrate Rafael Moneo, the curator Sarkis has set up a little exhibition inside the Book Pavillon at the Giardini: a selection of plastic models and emblematic pictures of the buildings realised by the Spanish architect, that can be seen as an answer to the question How will we live together?

The acknowledgment will be awarded to Rafael Moneo on Saturday, May 22nd, 2021 together with the the Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in memoriam to Lina Bo Bardi, during the awards ceremony and inauguration of the Biennale Architettura 2021.

KKursaal Convention Center, 1990-1999 by Rafael Moneo, San Sebastian, Spain. Photograph by Michael Moran

Kursaal Convention Center, 1990-1999 by Rafael Moneo, San Sebastian, Spain. Photograph by Michael Moran

Northwest Corner Building, Columbia University by Rafael Moneo, San Sebastian, Spain. Photograph by Duccio Malagamba, 2005-2009

National Museum of Roman Art by Rafael Moneo, Merida 1980-86. Photograph by Lluis Casals Casals

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels by Rafael Moneo, Merida 1980-86. Photograph by Michael Moran

Rafael Moneo. Photograph by Germán Saiz.

View more images

Metalocus recommends

Almazara Acesur by Mollinedo Arquitectura. Photograph by Jesús Granada

An integrated and humanized landscape. Almazara Acesur by Mollinedo Arquitectura

Gimnasio de escalada Spluga por Enrico Scaramellini. Fotografía por Marcello Mariana

Prepare to climb. Spluga climbing gym by Enrico Scaramellini

KOI Building by Ortiz Leon Arquitectos. Photograph by David Frutos

A wavy glass skin. KOI Building by Ortiz Leon Arquitectos

More information

José Rafael Moneo Vallés

José Rafael Moneo Vallés (born May 9. Tudela, Navarra,1937) is a Spanish architect. He was won the Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1996. He studied at the ETSAM, Technical University of Madrid (UPM) from which he received his architectural degree in 1961. From 1958 to 1961 he worked with the architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza in Madrid and from 1961-62 in Hellebaeck, Denmark with Jørn Utzon. In 1963 he was awarded a fellowship at the Spanish Academy in Rome. Upon his return to Spain in 1965, he opened his office in Madrid and began teaching at the Escuela Técnica Superior of Madrid.

In 1970 he won a teaching chair in architectural theory at the Escuela Técnica Superior of Barcelona. From 1980 to 1985 he was chaired professor of composition at the Escuela Técnica Superior of Madrid. He has taught architecture at various locations around the world and from 1985 to 1990 was the chairman of Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he is the first Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture. In 1991 he was named Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design where he continues to lecture as Professor Emeritus. He became Academic Numerary in the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid in May 1997.

Spanish constructions of his design include the renovation of the Villahermosa Palace (Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum) in Madrid, the National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida, an expansion of the Madrid Atocha railway station, the Diestre Factory in Zaragoza, Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation in Majorca the headquarters of the Bankinter (again, in Madrid), Town Hall in Logroño. He also designed the annex to the Murcia Town Hall, which was completed in 1998. His latest works are the enlargement of the Prado Museum, the extension of the Bank of Spain, an almost totally mimetic reproduction of the existing building and the extension of the Madrid Atocha railway station 2011.

Some of Moneo's prominent works in the US include the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, the Davis Art Museum at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and the Audrey Jones Beck Building (an expansion of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston). Moneo also designed the Chace Center, a new building for the Rhode Island School of Design. Moneo's most recent work is the Northwest Corner Building (formerly the Interdepartmental Science Building) at Columbia University in New York City, which first opened in December 2010.

Moneo is in possession of prestigious international awards including the Prize of architecture Arnold W. Brunner Memorial (1993) of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Schock Prize in Visual Arts (1993) in Stockholm, the Pritzker Prize (1996), the Antonio Feltrinelli (1998) of the National Academy of Lincei in Rome and Mies van der Rohe (2001) of Barcelona.

Biography Dates

	1937	Born in Tudela, Navarra Spain
	1958-61	Worked at the office of Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza
	1961	Obtained degree from the Escuela Técnica Superior, Madrid
	1962	Worked at the office of Jǿrn Utzon, Denmark
	1963	Spent two years at the Spanish Academy, Rome
	1967	Diestre Factory, Zaragoza, Spain
	1976	Bankinter (Bank) in Madrid
	1981	City Hall of Logrono, Spain
	1985-90	Dean at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design
	1986	National Museum of Roman Art, Mérida, Spain
	1987	L’Illa Diagonal, Barcelona, Spain, in collaboration with Manuel Solà-Morales
	1990	Kursaal Auditorium and Congress Center, San Sebastián, Spain
	1991	Murcia City Hall Extension, Spain San Pablo Airport, Seville, Spain
	1992	Madrid Atocha railway station The Pilar and Joan Miro Foundation, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
	1996	Pritzker Architecture Prize Souks, Beirut, Lebanon
	1998	Moderna Museet and Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, Stockholm, Sweden
	2000	Audrey Jones Beck Building, Houston, Texas
	2001	Iesu Church, San Sebastián, Spain
	2002	Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, California
	2003	RIBA Royal Gold Medal
	2005	Northwest Corner Building, Columbia University, New York, USA, in collaboration with Moneo-Brock Studio
	2007	Museo del Prado extension, Madrid, Spain Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, Princeton University, USA
	2009	New Library of the University of Deusto, Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain
	2012	Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts
	2015 2017	Museum University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain Praemium Imperiale