Alberto Campo Baeza 1946–
Born in Valladolid, where his grandfather was an architect, but from the age of two, he lived in Cádiz where he saw the Light.
He is a Professor in the Madrid School of Architecture, ETSAM, where he has been a tenured Professor for more than 25 years. He has taught at the ETH in Zurich and the EPFL in Lausanne as well as the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the Kansas State University, and at the CUA University in Washington.
He has given many lectures all over the world, and has received many awards like the Torroja for his Caja Granada or the Award of the UPM University for his Excellence in Teaching. In 2013 he has been awarded the Heinrich Tessenow Gold Medal, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the International Award Architecture in Stone in Verona, and the RIBA International Fellowship 2014 of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Also in 2014 he was elected Full Member to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando of Spain. In 2015, he has been awarded with the BigMat 2015 in Berlin and the International Prize of Spanish Architecture (PAEI 2015).
His works have been widely recognized. From the Houses Turégano and de Blas, both in Madrid, to Gaspar House, Asencio House or Guerrero House in Cádiz, Rufo House in Toledo and Moliner House in Zaragoza. And the Olnick Spanu House in Garrison, New York. Or the BIT Center in Inca-Mallorca, the public space Between Cathedrals, in Cádiz, or the Caja de Granada Savings Bank and the MA, the Museum of Memory of Andalucía, both in Granada. And a nursery for Benetton in Venice. In 2012 he finished the construction of the Offices in Zamora for the Regional Government of Castilla y León, in 2014 the House of the Infinite, in Cádiz and in 2015 the Cala House in Madrid. At present, the Sports Pavilion or the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria is under construction.
And more than 30 editions of the books with his texts “La Idea Construida” [The Built Idea], “Pensar con las manos” [Thinking with your hands], and Principia Architectonica have been published in several languages. The latest edition of his last book of texts, “Poetica Architectonica” was published in 2014. And throughout 2015 “The Built Idea” has been translated into English and Chinese and “Quiero ser arquitecto” has been edited by Los libros de la Catarata. He believes in Architecture as a Built Idea. And he believes that the principle components of Architecture are Gravity that constructs Space and Light that constructs Time. All his work has been gathered in a book by the publishing house Thames & Hudson.
He has exhibited his work in the Crown Hall by Mies at Chicago’s IIT and at the Palladio Basilica in Vicenza, at the Urban Center In New York, at the Saint Irene Church in Istanbul, and at the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome. In 2009 the prestigious MA Gallery of Toto in Tokyo made an anthological exhibition of his work that, in 2011 was in the MAXXI in Rome. In 2013 his work has been exhibited in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, and in the Pibamarmi Foundation in Vicenza. In 2014 at the School of Architecture of Valencia. And in 2015, at the Oris House of Architecture in Zagreb and, in Cádiz, at the College of Architects.