Rafael Moneo

Who is Rafael Moneo?

José Rafael Moneo Vallés is a Spanish architect. He was born in Tudela, Spain, and won the Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1996 and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2003. He studied at the ETSAM, Technical University of Madrid from which he received his architectural degree in 1961. From 1958 to 1961 he worked in the office in Madrid of the architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza. In 1963 he received a two year fellowship to study at the Spanish Academy in Rome, which had a great influence on his later work. After his return to Spain in 1965, he taught as an adjunct professor at the ETSAM in Madrid. In 1972, became Professor of Elements of Composition at the ETSAB, for which he moved to Barcelona. 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. 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 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, 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 and the extension of the Bank of Spain, an almost totally mimetic reproduction of the existing building.