Rafael Moneo awarded with Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

Spanish architect, Rafael Moneo will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, which will take place on May 22nd, 2021.

Hashim Sarkis, Curator of the 2021 Biennale di Architettura, recommended Moneo as deserving of the award, stating that:

«Rafael Moneo is one of the most transformative architects of his generation (…) Throughout his long career, Moneo has maintained a poetic prowess, reminding us of the powers of architectural form to express, shape but also to endure. He has also been tenaciously committed to architecture as an act of building.

The Golden Lion for lifetime achievement is only befitting for the architect who took part in the Giudecca housing project of 1983, who won the competition for a new Cinema Palace at the Lido di Venezia in 1991, and who has drawn many a lesson for architecture from Venice».

Sarkis arranged an exhibition to acknowledge and celebrate Moneo, in the Book Pavilion at the Giardini, which consists of a selection of plastic models and pictures of Moneo’s buildings that can be seen as an answer to the question: How will we live together?

Rafael Moneo besides being an emblematic architect, is an educator, a critic, and a theoretician who mints a Pritzker Prize (1996), a UIA Gold Medal (1996), a Royal Gold Medal – RIBA (2003), a Praemium Imperiale (2017), among others.

Here you can find the Biennale Architettura 2021 abstract of Moneo’s recognition.

The following is a compilation of some of the most relevant projects of Rafael Moneo: