Rafael Moneo Vallés

José Rafael Moneo is first and foremost a powerful architect. As an eclectic man, defined as one who selects and uses the best from all sources, including his own creativity, his flexibility in varying the look of his works according to different contexts is reflected in the way he approaches each new commission as a new exercise. He draws on an incredible reservoir of concepts and ideas that filters through the details of the site, purpose, form, climate and other circumstances of the project. As a result, each of his buildings are unique, but at the same time, recognisable as part of his palette.

That palette has ranged from the ancient, the Museum of Roman Art in Mérida, which is one of his finest achievements, to the minimalist monument planned for San Sebastián: two translucent cubes that will house the Kursall Auditorium and Conference Centre. Between these two examples there are endless variations, embodied in everything from residences and flats to art museums, a railway station, an airport, a factory, a hotel, banks, a town hall and other office buildings. Each of his designs has a confident and timeless quality, indicative of a master architect whose talent is evident from the first concept to the last detail of the finished building.

For Moneo, the most important thing is to achieve a finished building, to the point of being self-critical, he believes in the built work and that, once built, the work must stand on its own, a reality that is much more than a translation of the architect's drawings. He considers materials and construction techniques to be as important as the architect's vision and concept, and therefore an integral part of a lasting architecture, another key attribute he seeks in his work.

As a writer and critic, devoting almost as much time to education as to design, he shapes the future of architecture with his words. Most important are his words as a teacher, which influenced teachers and students alike with his strong commitment to the modernist tradition, both in the United States and in Spain. In the former country, he was Chairman of the Department of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design for five years, and in his native country, a member of the faculties of the Universities of Madrid and Barcelona.

Moneo's career is the ideal example of knowledge and experience that enhance the mutual interaction of theory, practice and teaching. The Pritzker Architecture Prize pays tribute to Moneo for these parallel efforts of past, present and future.