Spanish museum architecture has experienced a marked upturn since the 1990s, helping even small towns off the tourist beaten track to acquire extraordinary museum buildings. This is expressed most visibly without a shadow of a doubt in Frank O. Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. But there are not just the international stars who have contributed to this success. Spanish architects in particular have designed unique museums that have changed the look of whole towns. The present book, which is also suitable as a museum guide, shows that this tendency is particularly conspicuous in the new museums. It confirms the world-class nature of Spanish architecture, recorded from Rafael Moneo's early Museo Nacional de Arte Romano in Merida to Herzog & de Meuron's new CaixaForum art gallery in Madrid.

Spanish museum architecture has experienced a marked upturn since the 1990s, helping even small towns off the tourist beaten track to acquire extraordinary museum buildings. This is expressed most visibly without a shadow of a doubt in Frank O. Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. But there are not just the international stars who have contributed to this success. Spanish architects in particular have designed unique museums that have changed the look of whole towns. One example is the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y Leon in Leon in Castille, built by the Madrid architects Mansilla + Tu~on. Rafael Moneo, who recently completed the annexe for the Museo del Prado in Madrid is still the undisputed leading figure in Spanish architecture, but in the meantime architects like Mansilla + Tunon, who trained under Moneo, are attracting attention internationally as well as in Spain, and so are young talents who have just left architecture school and are successfully designing museums.

Spanish architects use a wide variety of formal languages. And yet there are some characteristics that apply to them all: they have never been interested in the Postmodernism games; many of them value reinterpreting regional building traditions in a modern way; they are also sensitive to special features of the existing topography. Kenneth Frampton said in this context that Spanish architecture essentially runs counter to the globalization tendencies that are increasingly reducing architectural form to a comfortable aesthetic product.

The present book, which is also suitable as a museum guide, shows that this tendency is particularly conspicuous in the new museums. It confirms the world-class nature of Spanish architecture, recorded from Rafael Moneo's early Museo Nacional de Arte Romano in Merida to Herzog & de Meuron's new CaixaForum art gallery in Madrid.

Klaus Englert studied philosophy and German.He was academic adviser to the Zollverein development company in Essen. He has worked forseveral years as free-lance culture correspondent and architecture critic for the Suddeutsche Zeitung, the Neue Zurcher Zeitung and the FrankfurterAIIgemeine Zeitung. Roland Halbe, who took most of the photographs presented in this book,is one of the most sought-after architectural photographers of today, and nearly all prestigious architects in Spain are working with him.

Architectonic attractions

Rafael Moneo: Respectful extension

Victoria Acebo and Angel Alonso, Centro de las

Artes, A Coruna

Manuel Gallego, Museo de Belas Artes, A Coruna

Nicholas Grimshaw, Fundacion Caixa Galicia,

A Coruna

Arata Isozaki, Domus, la Casa del Hombre,

A Coruna

Alfredo Paya, Museo de la Universidad, Alicante

Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos, Museo Arqueolo-

gico, Almeria

Javier Saenz de Oiza, Museo Jorge Oteiza, Alzuza

Jordi Garces and Enric SOfia, Esteve and Robert

Terradas, CosmoCaixa, Barcelona

Arata Isozaki, CaixaForum Barcelona, Barcelona

Richard Meier, Museu d'Art Contemporani de

Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona

Frank O. Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa,

Bilbao

Rafael Moneo, Museo Teatro Romano, Cartagena

Guillermo Vazquez Consuegra, Museo Nacional

de Arqueologia Subaquatica (ARQUA), Cartagena

Mansilla+Tunon, Museo de Bellas Artes, Castel-

lon

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, Museo y Sede Insti-

tucional de Madinat al-Zahra, COrdoba

Chillida-Leku, Hernani

Rafael Moneo, Centro de Arte y Naturaleza,

Fundacion Beulas (CDAN), Huesca

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, Museo del Mar,

Castilio de la Luz, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Mansilla+Tunon, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo

de Castilla y LeOn (MUSAC), Leon

Paseo del Arte, Madrid

Manuel Baquero, Robert Brufau and Studio

BOPBAA, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Herzog & de Meuron, CaixaForum, Madrid

Rafael Moneo, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

Jean Nouvel, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte

Reina Sofia (MNCARS), Madrid

Richard Gluckman, Museo Picasso, Malaga

Wolf Vostell, Museo Vostell Malpartida, Malpartida

de Caceres

Rafael Moneo, Museo Nacional de Arte Romano,

Merida

Rafael Moneo, Fundacio Pilar i Joan Miro, Palma

de Mallorca

Herzog & de Meuron, Tenerife Espacio de las

Artes (TEA), Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Alvaro Siza Vieira, Centro Galego de Arte Contem-

poraneo, Santiago de Compostela

Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Museo de Altamira,

Santillana del Mar

Santiago Calatrava, Museu de les Ciencies

Principe Felipe, Valencia

Guillermo Vazquez Consuegra, Museo Valenciano

de la IlustraciOn y de la Modernidad (MUVlM),

Valencia

Juan Carlos Arnuncio, Clara Aizpun and Javier

Blanco Museo, Museo Patio Herreriano de Arte

Contemporaneo Espanol, Valladolid

Aldo Rossi, Museo do Mar de Galicia, Vigo

Illustration credits