Alberto Campo Baeza

Alberto CAMPO BAEZA
National Prize for Architecture 2020

The Spanish National Architecture Prize, awarded by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, has been awarded to the architect Alberto Campo Baeza.

The prize is awarded annually to outstanding Spanish architects of international renown and represents the highest distinction granted by the Ministry. Previous winners include Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza (1946 y 1954), Alejandro de la Sota (1974), José Antonio Corrales and Ramón Vázquez Molezún (1948 and 2001), Miguel Fisac (2002), Juan Navarro Baldeweg (2014), Manuel Gallego Jorreto (1997 and 2008) and Rafael Moneo (1961 and 2015).

On this occasion, the panel of judges was comprised of the following eminent figures: Alvaro Siza Vieira, winner of the previous year’s award, Manuel Gallego, Estrella de Diego, Elisa Valero, Carme Pigem, Inmaculada Maluenda and Lucía Cano, together with the Director and Deputy Director of the Directorate-General for Urban Agenda and Architecture. Campo Baeza was proposed for this year’s edition of the National Architecture Prize by the Schools of Architecture of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Valladolid, Pamplona and Granada as well as the Official colleges of architecture of Madrid, Almeria, Asturias and Cadiz, the Universidad San Pablo CEU and the CSCAE.

Alberto Campo Baeza is Professor Emeritus at the ETSAM UPM, Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, holder of the Tessenow Medal, the Arnold Brunner Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, and International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the American Institute of Architects. In 2017 he was awarded the COAM Prize and the Attolini Prize by Anahuac University in Mexico, and in 2018 he was awarded the Piranesi Prize by the Accademia Adrianea in Rome. In 2019 he was awarded the Gold Medal of Architecture by the CSCAE.

Campo Baeza has publicly expressed his profound gratitude for this prestigious award, which he says owes more to the generosity of the judges than to his own merits. And even though he has received countless awards throughout his life, he continues to highlight the generosity of each and every jury. Of all the awards bestowed on him throughout his lifetime, he says that the one he most cherishes is that of excellence in teaching, awarded by his alma mater, the UPM, in 2012. In accordance with prevailing regulations, 2020 marks Campo Baeza’s final year of teaching as Professor Emeritus at the UPM’s School of Architecture in Madrid, the ETSAM.  In the coming spring semester, he will be teaching in New York, at the NYIT, the New York Institute of Technology.

The eminent Spanish architect owns neither a car, nor a mobile phone, nor a television, nor a watch. Yet he has more than 7 million views on his website www.campobaeza.com. He says that he is happy and can only thank God for everything. And he claims that those closest to him, his collaborators and his friends, are all better than him.

Acabo de hablar con el arquitecto Alberto Campo Baeza para comunicarle que ha sido galardonado con el Premio Nacional de Arquitectura 2020, en reconocimiento a la coherencia de su trayectoria, su independencia creativa y a toda una vida dedicada a la docencia.

— José Luis Ábalos (@abalosmeco) December 23, 2020