Rafael Moneo to speak Feb. 28

Rafael Moneo, Northwest Corner Building, Columbia University, New York. Photo by Michael Moran.

Rafael Moneo is arguably the most celebrated Spanish architect working today, known for innovative modern buildings that deftly navigate even the most challenging urban sites while preserving and respecting the existing environments.

Moneo’s National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida, Spain, completed in 1985, is a modern exhibition space literally built over the ruins of a Roman town.

More recently, The New York Times praised his new Northwest Corner Building — a 50,000-square-foot science building for Columbia University — as “a vivid example of how to fit into a difficult historical context without slavishly kowtowing to it.”

At 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 28, Moneo will discuss his work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Public Lecture Series.

The talk — the school’s annual Cannon Design Lecture for Excellence in Architecture and Engineering — will take place in Steinberg Hall Auditorium, located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. A reception for Moneo will precede the lecture, at 6 p.m.

For more information, call (314) 935-9300 or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

Winner of the 1996 Pritzker Prize — architecture’s equivalent to the Nobel — Moneo was born in Tudela in 1937 and received an architectural degree in 1961 from the Escuela Técnica Superior of Madrid.

In 1970, he won a teaching chair in architectural theory at the Escuela Técnica Superior of Barcelona, where he taught until 1980, when he became chaired professor of composition at the Escuela Técnica Superior in Madrid.

In 1985, Moneo was appointed chair of the architecture department at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD). He is currently the Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture in the GSD.

In addition to the National Museum of Roman Art, Moneo’s major projects include the Atocha Railway Station (1992), the Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation in Palma de Mallorca (1993), the annex for the Town Hall of Murcia (1999) and the Mothers and Children’s Hospital in Madrid (2003) as well as major expansions to the Bank of Spain (1988) and the Prado Museum (2007).

In the United States, projects include the Davis Museum and Cultural Center for Wellesley College (1993), the Audrey Jones Beck Building for The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (2000), Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles (2002), the Laboratory for Interface and Engineering at Harvard (2007) and the Chace Student Center for the Rhode Island School of Design (2008).

Works under construction include the Iesu Parish Church in San Sebastián, the Princeton University Neuroscience and Psychology Building, and a Center for Contemporary Art for the University of Navarra.

An Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Moneo was awarded the Gold Medal for Achievement in the Fine Arts by the Spanish government in 1992 and the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2003.