Rafael Moneo

José Rafael Moneo Vallés (born 9 May 1937) is a Spanish architect. He was born in Tudela, Spain, and won the Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1996. He studied at the ETSAM, Technical University ofMadrid (UPM) 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 twoyear 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(1966-1970). 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 thechairman of Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he is the first Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture.[1] He became Academic Numerary in the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando inMadrid 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 expansionof 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 alsodesigned the annex to the Murcia Town Hall, which was completed in 1998.[2] His latest works are the enlargement of the Prado Museum and the extension of the Bank of Spain, an almost totally mimeticreproduction of the existing building.
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 Massachusettsand 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.[3] Moneo's most...