Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos: Five Themes
Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano present their firm's work, which won the 2015 Alvar Aalto Medal.
May 9, 2016
Recorded on October 28, 2015.
Current Work is a lecture series featuring leading figures in the worlds of architecture, urbanism, design, and art.
Founded in 1985, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos has offices in Madrid and Berlin. Its richly textured work is recognized for its sympathetic response to the topography and historical attributes of place.
These qualities were lauded in the citation for the Alvar Aalto Medal awarded to the firm in 2015: “The roots of their architecture lie in Spain, and its multi-layered history and culture. Their works speak a silent language, proving that the precondition of meaningful architecture is an in-depth understanding of local culture and the context of the design brief.”
The firm’s Current Work lecture reflects the interrelationship between five simple architectural elements within their work:
- ground, as a landscape or as part of a city
- roof, as a reaction to modern architecture and its relationship to the skyline
- void, as a definition of space and interstitial space
- fragment, as it relates to the idea of memory and the past, and
- pattern, as a reference to variations on an overall theme.
In this video, partners Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano discuss projects including:
- Moritzburg Museum, Halle, Germany, 2004–2008
- Madinat Al-Zahra Museum, Córdoba, Spain, 1999–2009
- Guangzhou Science Museum, Guangzhou, China, 2014–2016.
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