Manuel de Solà-Morales. Born 1939. Architect and city planner, most dedicated to urban design matters. Former student of Ludovico Quaroni in Rome and Josep Lluis Sert at Harvard. Doctor in Architecture (Univ. of Barcelona), Economics (Univ. of Barcelona), Master City Planning (Univ. of Harvard).
Chair Professor of Urbanism at the School of Architecture of Barcelona. Founder and head, since 1968, of the Laboratori d’Urbanisme de Barcelona, a research group in urban morphology. Visiting courses at Cambridge UK, New York, Santiago de Chile, Lisbon, Harvard, Leuven, Milan, Naples, Caracas, Coimbra, Paris, Nanjing, Shanghai, Melbourne, Copenhaguen, etc…
Professor of the Master Course “Periphery as a project” (1991-95).
Director of the Barcelona School of Architecture from 1994 to 1998.
Fellow of Cambridge University, UK (1984).
Member of the Academie Française de l’Architecture (2003).
Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Leuven (2004).
Professional office in Barcelona. Influent on Barcelona urbanism, at the olympic works of 1992, specially with the master ideas for the sea front transformation, and the realisation of the wide known “Moll de la Fusta”. Past urban projects for various European cities (Berlin, Salzburg, Naples, Rotterdam, Antwerpen, Thessaloniki, Genova and Trieste). Recently, he has carried out the transformation of the port area in Saint-Nazaire (France), the Stationsplein in Leuven (Belgium), the public space Winschoterkade in Groningen (Holland) and the Paseo Atlantico in Porto (Portugal). In Spain, realisation of the center “L’Illa Diagonal” in Barcelona (with Rafael Moneo), and the housing project “La Sang”, at the old center of Alcoi, Alicante.
Nowadays, he is executing new urban plans and public housing in Sant Andreu (Barcelona), Torressana (Terrassa, Barcelona) and El Carme (Reus, Tarragona); the renewal of the center of Arnhem (Holland); the seaside walk in Scheveningen (The Hague, the Netherlands); the renovation of the central area “Operaplein” in Antwerp (Belgium); and the “ multimodal pole” in Pau (France).
Author of many studies, books, articles and exhibitions.
Publisher of book series “Materiales de la ciudad” and “Ciencia urbanística”. Founder and editor of the magazines “Arquitecturas Bis”, “UR, Urbanismo-Revista”. Collaborator of “Lotus”, “Casabella”, “Perspecta”, “Archis”, “Daidalos”, “Quaderns d’Arquitectura”, etc.
Awards: “March a la investigación”, 1970; “Puig i Cadafalch”, 1981; “Nacional de Urbanismo”, 1983, “Ciutat de Barcelona”, 1986; “Bienal de Arquitectura española”, 1994; “F.A.D”., 1995; “Iber FAD”, 1999; “Narcis Monturiol”, 2000; “Grand Prix d’Urbanisme, Europe”, 2000,Catalunya Urbanisme, 2004. Designer and producer of “URBATAS”.
