Alejandro Zaera
Encyclopedia
Alejandro Zaera Polo is a contemporary architect and founder of London and Barcelona-based Alejandro Zaera-Polo Architecture. He is also a Visiting Professor in Princeton and Yale Schools of Architecture, and is a prolific theorist, widely published in different professional media.
where he graduated with Distinction. He worked at the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam
between 1991 and 1993, prior to establishing Foreign Office Architects
in 1993. As a principal of FOA he co-authored the award-winning Yokohama International Ferry Terminal
in Japan, after winning an international design competition in 1995. He also was part of the United Architects team who were finalists in the Ground Zero competition. He designed and supervised the completion of a wide range of international projects such as the Barcelona Forum Park and Auditoria,the Torrevieja Theater, the Rioja Technology Transfer Centre in Logrono, Spain, the Carabanchel Housing in Madrid, The Palace Residential Towers in Busan and the recently completed Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication. He also designed and delivered the Spanish Pavilion in the Aichi International Exhibition 2004 and the Madrid Pavilion in Expo Shanghai 2010, and represented Britain in the Venice Architecture Biennale 2002.
Alejandro Zaera Polo’s former London-based firm, Foreign Office Architects
(FOA), is recognized as one of the most creative design firms in the world, deftly integrating architecture, urban design and landscape architecture. Under his theoretical stewardship, FOA has produced critically acclaimed and award winning projects for the public and private sector on an international scale. In their approach to architecture, FOA are new pragmatists, bringing to bear great technical rigor in their focus on organic growth
and the evolution of design ‘species’ hybridizing uses relating to both local and global conditions. The work unfolds rigorously through a broad variety of locations and typologies. In 2002 the groundbreaking project which put his practice on the map, the Yokohama Port Terminal in Japan was completed, an imaginative hybrid of non-Cartesian industrial infrastructure and versatile social functionality.
Since then, the work of FOA practice branched into a broad range of typologies, geographical locations and client types, rigorously developed to suit the particular conditions and programatic requirements. Alejandro Zaera-Polo's practice AZPA will be continuing the FOA experiment into new projects, without limits of type or location.
In June 2011 he established Alejandro Zaera-Polo Architecture(AZPA), where he is working on the Redevelopment of the Birmingham New Street Station, the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championship Facilities in Santander, the Gapyong Community Centre in South Korea, the Hospital Universitari Arnau de Vilanova en Lleida and the BioPol Science Centre in Barcelona.
from as early as 1987, where he identified and theorised the work of the current generation of established architects. His early theoretical work inaugurates a materialist critique of architecture departing from deconstruction and critical theory, the predominant theoretical discourses in the 1980s. It is also deeply influenced by the readings of Deleuze and Guattari and complexity theory
, connecting him to the discourse practiced in America by authors such as Jeffrey Kipnis, Sanford Kwinter
and Greg Lynn
, and by the reading of neomarxist authors, such as Manuel Castells
, David Harvey
and Henri Lefebvre
, which left a strong political bias to his approach to architectural theory.
After these early adventures, he succeeded in transferring his early theoretical interests into a viable architectural practice, as a founding partner of Foreign Office Architects
(FOA). The experience of architectural practice shifted his critique towards a more pragmatic perspective and addressed to the discussion of the practice of architecture and the analysis of the conditions of production that affect it: the impact of globalisation, information technologies and organisational structures, the discussion of iconography and representation in the cultural and political role of architecture and a political critique of the contemporary building industry are some of the subjects that his most recent theoretical work addresses. With a characteristic sniper-like style, Zaera Polo’s recent theoretical work has been published through articles in different media, constantly changing position and location to address contemporary subjects in a poignant and polemical manner. His own Scientific Autobiography charts, as a transcontinental, psycho-geographical drift, a gravitation through some of the most stimulating architectural milieus over the last quarter of a century. Recounting a varied and vivid sequence of cultural exposures, Zaera Polo applies knowledge and experimentalism as he evolves his personal reading of architectural theory and practice - not as dialectically opposed entities, but as a complex continuum.
Beyond the theoretical work in El Croquis
, his texts have been published in many professional publications such as Quaderns, A+U, Arch+, Log
, Volume
and Harvard Design Magazine
, and in books including The Endless City and Living in the Endless City (ed. Richard Burdett and Deyan Sudjic
, published by Phaidon, 2008 and 2011). Many of his writings constitute FOA’s published texts.
, the Netherlands. He was Dean of the Berlage Institute
in Rotterdam
from 2002–2005, resetting the institution’s academic compass through pedagogy and public events towards the creation of new instruments of architecture and urban design conceived through practice in globalised conditions. He has been a Visiting Critic at Columbia GSAPP, Princeton SOA, UCLA School of Architecture, and he led a Diploma Unit for eight years at the Architectural Association in London. He has now become a visiting professor at Ravensbourne London.
He has also been an advisor to several urban design and development committees, such as the Municipal Quality Commission for Architecture of the City of Barcelona
. He is also a member of The Urban Age, the worldwide, multidisciplinary investigation into the future of cities via a sequence of international conferences, staged from 2005-10 by the think tank of the same name, which is based at the London School of Economics
.
‘A Scientific Autobiography, 1982-2004: Madrid, Harvard, OMA, the AA, Yokohama, the Globe’, in The New Architectural Pragmatism, (ed. William S. Saunders), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007
‘30 St Mary’s Axe: Form isn’t Facile’, Log, #4, Winter 2005
‘The Hokusai Wave’, Volume, #3, September 2005
‘High-rise Phylum 2007’, Harvard Design Magazine, Spring 2007
'The Politics of the Envelope', Log #13|14, Fall 2008
'The Politics of the Envelope', Volume #17, Fall 2008
Career
Alejandro Zaera-Polo was born in Madrid in 1963. He trained at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, graduating with Honors, and went on to do a Master in Architecture (MARCH II) at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
where he graduated with Distinction. He worked at the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
between 1991 and 1993, prior to establishing Foreign Office Architects
Foreign Office Architects
Foreign Office Architects, FOA, was an internationally acclaimed architectural design studio headed by former husband and wife team Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo. The London based studio, which was established in 1993, specialised in architectural design, master planning and interior...
in 1993. As a principal of FOA he co-authored the award-winning Yokohama International Ferry Terminal
Osanbashi Pier
is the main international pier at the Port of Yokohama, located in Naka Ward, Yokohama, Japan. Ōsanbashi is the oldest pier in Yokohama, originally constructed between 1889 and 1896.To meet modern demands, Ōsanbashi was reconstructed between 1987 and 2002...
in Japan, after winning an international design competition in 1995. He also was part of the United Architects team who were finalists in the Ground Zero competition. He designed and supervised the completion of a wide range of international projects such as the Barcelona Forum Park and Auditoria,the Torrevieja Theater, the Rioja Technology Transfer Centre in Logrono, Spain, the Carabanchel Housing in Madrid, The Palace Residential Towers in Busan and the recently completed Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication. He also designed and delivered the Spanish Pavilion in the Aichi International Exhibition 2004 and the Madrid Pavilion in Expo Shanghai 2010, and represented Britain in the Venice Architecture Biennale 2002.
Alejandro Zaera Polo’s former London-based firm, Foreign Office Architects
Foreign Office Architects
Foreign Office Architects, FOA, was an internationally acclaimed architectural design studio headed by former husband and wife team Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo. The London based studio, which was established in 1993, specialised in architectural design, master planning and interior...
(FOA), is recognized as one of the most creative design firms in the world, deftly integrating architecture, urban design and landscape architecture. Under his theoretical stewardship, FOA has produced critically acclaimed and award winning projects for the public and private sector on an international scale. In their approach to architecture, FOA are new pragmatists, bringing to bear great technical rigor in their focus on organic growth
Organic growth
In finance, organic growth is the process of businesses expansion due to increasing overall customer base, increased output per customer or representative, new sales, or any combination of the above, as opposed to mergers and acquisitions that are examples of inorganic growth. Typically, the...
and the evolution of design ‘species’ hybridizing uses relating to both local and global conditions. The work unfolds rigorously through a broad variety of locations and typologies. In 2002 the groundbreaking project which put his practice on the map, the Yokohama Port Terminal in Japan was completed, an imaginative hybrid of non-Cartesian industrial infrastructure and versatile social functionality.
Since then, the work of FOA practice branched into a broad range of typologies, geographical locations and client types, rigorously developed to suit the particular conditions and programatic requirements. Alejandro Zaera-Polo's practice AZPA will be continuing the FOA experiment into new projects, without limits of type or location.
In June 2011 he established Alejandro Zaera-Polo Architecture(AZPA), where he is working on the Redevelopment of the Birmingham New Street Station, the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championship Facilities in Santander, the Gapyong Community Centre in South Korea, the Hospital Universitari Arnau de Vilanova en Lleida and the BioPol Science Centre in Barcelona.
Alejandro Zaera-Polo Architecture
- Birmingham New Street Redevelopment, Birmingham UK (2007-)
- 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championship Facilities in Santander, Spain (2011-)
- Gapyong Community Centre in South Korea (2010-)
- Hospital Universitari Arnau de Vilanova in Lleida, Spain (2011-)
- BioPol Science Centre in Barcelona, Spain (2011-)
Foreign Office Architects
- Osanbashi Yokohama International Passenger TerminalOsanbashi Pieris the main international pier at the Port of Yokohama, located in Naka Ward, Yokohama, Japan. Ōsanbashi is the oldest pier in Yokohama, originally constructed between 1889 and 1896.To meet modern demands, Ōsanbashi was reconstructed between 1987 and 2002...
, Japan (1995–2002) - Bluemoon Hotel, Groningen, The Netherlands (1999–2000)
- Police headquarters, La Villajoyosa, Spain (2000-3)
- Coastal park with outdoor auditoriums, Barcelona, Spain (2000-4)
- Municipal Theatre, Torrevieja, Spain (2000-6)
- La Rioja Technology Transfer Centre, Logrono (2003-7)
- Bamboo Building, a social housing in MadridMadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
(2004-7) - Spanish Pavilion at the 2005 International ExpoExpo 2005Expo 2005 was the World's Fair held for 185 days between Friday, March 25 and Sunday, September 25, 2005, in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, east of the city of Nagoya. It was a Specialized International Exhibition under the scheme of the 1972 protocol of the Convention relating to International Exhibitions...
, Aichi (2004-5) - Headquarters for Dulnyouk Publishers, Paju, South Korea (2000-5)
- Meydan Retail Complex and Multiplex, Istanbul, Turkey (2005-7)
- John LewisJohn Lewis (department store)-Recent developments:In June 2004, John Lewis announced plans to open its first store in Northern Ireland at the Sprucefield Park development, the province's largest out of town shopping centre, located outside Lisburn and from Belfast. The application was approved in June 2005 and the opening of...
department store and Cineplex and pedestrian bridges, Leicester, UK (2000-8) - Villa in Pedralbes, Barcelona, Spain (2004-8)
- D-38 Office Complex, Barcelona (2004–2009)
- New Street Station, Birmingham (2008 -)
- Ravensbourne collegeRavensbourne College of Design and CommunicationRavensbourne is a university sector college innovating in digital media and design, with a vocationally focused portfolio of courses, spanning fashion, television and broadcasting, interactive product design, architecture and environment design, graphic design, animation, moving image, music...
on the Greenwich Peninsula, London (2005-) - Trinity EC3 office complex, City of London (2003-)
- Mixed-use extension of West Quay II retail centre, Southampton (2002-)
- SevenstoneSevenstoneSevenstone is the marketing name of the project formerly known as the New Retail Quarter/NRQ which involves the demolition and rebuilding of an area of Sheffield, England between the Devonshire Quarter and The Moor Gateway. Sheffield City Centre has suffered from the collapse of steel making and...
Quarter mixed-use complex, Sheffield, UK (2007-) - Hadspen Gardens, Somerset, UK (2005-)
- The Palace Residential Towers in Busan, South Korea (2006–2011)
- Euston Station, London, UK (2008-)
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA (2006-)
- KL Central Plot D Residential Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2006-)
Research and Theory
Alejandro Zaera-Polo had an unusually early involvement as a theorist, writing for El CroquisEl Croquis
El Croquis is one of the most prestigious architectural magazines in the world.The leading international architects choose it as their showcase...
from as early as 1987, where he identified and theorised the work of the current generation of established architects. His early theoretical work inaugurates a materialist critique of architecture departing from deconstruction and critical theory, the predominant theoretical discourses in the 1980s. It is also deeply influenced by the readings of Deleuze and Guattari and complexity theory
Complex systems
Complex systems present problems in mathematical modelling.The equations from which complex system models are developed generally derive from statistical physics, information theory and non-linear dynamics, and represent organized but unpredictable behaviors of systems of nature that are considered...
, connecting him to the discourse practiced in America by authors such as Jeffrey Kipnis, Sanford Kwinter
Sanford Kwinter
Sanford Kwinter is a Canada-born, New York-based writer and world-renowned architectural theorist, and a co-founder of the influential publishers. Kwinter currently serves as Professor of Theory and Criticism at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design...
and Greg Lynn
Greg Lynn
Greg Lynn is owner of the Greg Lynn FORM office, an o. Univ. Professor of architecture at University of Applied Arts Vienna, a studio professor at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, and the Davenport Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture. He was the winner of the Golden...
, and by the reading of neomarxist authors, such as Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells is a sociologist especially associated with information society and communication research....
, David Harvey
David Harvey (geographer)
David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York . A leading social theorist of international standing, he received his PhD in Geography from University of Cambridge in 1961. Widely influential, he is among the top 20 most cited...
and Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre was a French sociologist, Marxist intellectual, and philosopher, best known for his work on dialectics, Marxism, everyday life, cities, and space.-Biography:...
, which left a strong political bias to his approach to architectural theory.
After these early adventures, he succeeded in transferring his early theoretical interests into a viable architectural practice, as a founding partner of Foreign Office Architects
Foreign Office Architects
Foreign Office Architects, FOA, was an internationally acclaimed architectural design studio headed by former husband and wife team Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo. The London based studio, which was established in 1993, specialised in architectural design, master planning and interior...
(FOA). The experience of architectural practice shifted his critique towards a more pragmatic perspective and addressed to the discussion of the practice of architecture and the analysis of the conditions of production that affect it: the impact of globalisation, information technologies and organisational structures, the discussion of iconography and representation in the cultural and political role of architecture and a political critique of the contemporary building industry are some of the subjects that his most recent theoretical work addresses. With a characteristic sniper-like style, Zaera Polo’s recent theoretical work has been published through articles in different media, constantly changing position and location to address contemporary subjects in a poignant and polemical manner. His own Scientific Autobiography charts, as a transcontinental, psycho-geographical drift, a gravitation through some of the most stimulating architectural milieus over the last quarter of a century. Recounting a varied and vivid sequence of cultural exposures, Zaera Polo applies knowledge and experimentalism as he evolves his personal reading of architectural theory and practice - not as dialectically opposed entities, but as a complex continuum.
Beyond the theoretical work in El Croquis
El Croquis
El Croquis is one of the most prestigious architectural magazines in the world.The leading international architects choose it as their showcase...
, his texts have been published in many professional publications such as Quaderns, A+U, Arch+, Log
Log (journal)
Log is a magazine of architecture and urbanism that has been published by the Anyone Corporation since 2003, and is edited by Cynthia Davidson...
, Volume
Volume
Volume is the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by some closed boundary, for example, the space that a substance or shape occupies or contains....
and Harvard Design Magazine
Harvard Design Magazine
The Harvard Design Magazine is a biannual publication of the Harvard Graduate School of Design that has been published since 1997....
, and in books including The Endless City and Living in the Endless City (ed. Richard Burdett and Deyan Sudjic
Deyan Sudjic
Deyan Sudjic is director of the Design Museum, London, England.Before moving to his post at the Design Museum, he contributed to Schoolkids OZ, was the design and architecture critic for The Observer, the Dean of the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Kingston University and Co-Chair of the...
, published by Phaidon, 2008 and 2011). Many of his writings constitute FOA’s published texts.
Academic Activities
Zaera-Polo has also had an extensive involvement in education at an international level since 1993. In 2009, he was awarded the Norman R. Foster Visiting Professorship at the Yale University School of Architecture. He is also currently a Visiting Professor at Princeton University School of Architecture, and occupies the Berlage Chair at the Technical University in DelftDelft
Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....
, the Netherlands. He was Dean of the Berlage Institute
Berlage Institute
The Berlage Institute was founded in 1990 as an independent postgraduate school of architecture in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Named after the Dutch architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage, the Berlage has an international student population and teaching staff....
in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
from 2002–2005, resetting the institution’s academic compass through pedagogy and public events towards the creation of new instruments of architecture and urban design conceived through practice in globalised conditions. He has been a Visiting Critic at Columbia GSAPP, Princeton SOA, UCLA School of Architecture, and he led a Diploma Unit for eight years at the Architectural Association in London. He has now become a visiting professor at Ravensbourne London.
He has also been an advisor to several urban design and development committees, such as the Municipal Quality Commission for Architecture of the City of Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
. He is also a member of The Urban Age, the worldwide, multidisciplinary investigation into the future of cities via a sequence of international conferences, staged from 2005-10 by the think tank of the same name, which is based at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
.
Selected awards
- Enric Miralles Prize for Architecture (2003)
- Kanagawa Prize for Architecture in Japan (2003)
- RIBA International Award (2004)
- Lion Award for Topography at the 9th Venice Architecture BiennaleVenice Biennale of architectureMostra di Architettura di Venezia, the Architecture section of the Venice Biennale, was established in 1980, although architecture had been a part of the art biennale since 1968....
(2004) - Charles Jencks Award for Architecture (2005)
- RIBA International AwardRIBA International AwardRIBA International Awards are part of an awards program operated by the Royal Institute of British Architects, also encompassing the Stirling Prize and the European Award.The RIBA International Award rewards "the excellent work being done by RIBA members around the world"...
(2005) - RIBA International Award (2006)
- RIBA European AwardRIBA European AwardRIBA European Awards are part of an award program by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Complemented by the RIBA National and International Awards, it rewards "the excellent work being done by RIBA members in the European Union outside the UK". Awarded annually, it is given to a varying...
(2008) - European Business Award for the Environment (2008)
- Urban Land Institute Award for Excellence (2008)
- RIBA Award (2009)
- Civic Trust Award (2010)
- International Council of Shopping Centres Award (2010)
- International Architecture Award (2010)
Books
- FOA’s ark evolving container for the proliferating singularities, Korean Architecture and Culture Magazine, December 2004
- Phylogenesis: foa’s ark, Actar, Barcelona, Spain, 2003
- Foreign Office Architects, Complexity and consistency, A monograph, El Croquis, # 115/116, Madrid, Spain, 2003
- The Yokohama Project, Actar, Barcelona, Spain, 2002
- The Yokohama Project, a monograph, Actar, Barcelona, Spain, 2002
- Foreign Office Architects, 2G # 16: A monograph on the designers of the Yokohama Port Terminal and other interesting projects, (English/Spanish) Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, Spain, 2001
Various texts by Alejandro Zaera Polo
Interview with Peter Macapia, Log, #3, Fall 2004‘A Scientific Autobiography, 1982-2004: Madrid, Harvard, OMA, the AA, Yokohama, the Globe’, in The New Architectural Pragmatism, (ed. William S. Saunders), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007
‘30 St Mary’s Axe: Form isn’t Facile’, Log, #4, Winter 2005
‘The Hokusai Wave’, Volume, #3, September 2005
‘High-rise Phylum 2007’, Harvard Design Magazine, Spring 2007
'The Politics of the Envelope', Log #13|14, Fall 2008
'The Politics of the Envelope', Volume #17, Fall 2008
External links
- FOA’s official website: http://www.f-o-a.net/
- Archinect: discussion on Iconography, or the problem of representation, following the publication of Alejandro Zaera Polo’s text ‘The Hokusai Wave’ in Volume #3, September 2005 http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=33493_0_42_0_C
- Archinect: discussion following the publication of Alejandro Zaera Polo’s text ‘The Politics of the Envelope’ in Volume #17, September 2008 and Log #14 and #16, Dec 2008 http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=83285_0_42_0_C
- Berlage Institute: http://www.berlage-institute.nl/
- El Croquis http://www.elcroquis.es/Home.aspx?lang=en
- El Pais: interviews with and features about Alejandro Zaera Polo, 2002-2006 http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:5LwFL2X8RpMJ:www.elpais.com/todo-sobre/persona/Zaera/Alejandro/3830/+Alejandro+Zaera+Polo+El+Pais&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=uk
- The Endless City (eds.Richard Burdett and Deyan Sudjic), Phaidon, 2007 http://www.phaidon.com/endlesscity/
- Harvard Design Magazine Reader, 5: The New Architectural Pragmatism http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/S/saunders_new.html
- Log Magazine Issues #3 #14 and #16 http://www.anycorp.com/log/issues.php
- The Urban Age http://www.urban-age.net/
- Volume: interview with Alejandro Zaera Polo by Jeffrey Inaba, Ambition issue, #13, March 2007 http://www.archis.org/email/newsletter_Volume13oct07.html
- 0300TV Interview February 2009 http://www.0300tv.com/2009/09/alejandro-zaera-polo-interview-foa-part-1/ http://www.0300tv.com/2009/09/alejandro-zaera-polo-interview-foa-part-2/ http://www.0300tv.com/2009/10/alejandro-zaera-polo-interview-foa-part-3/
- Lecture in Les Enjeux Capitales, Pompidou Centre, 2 Oct 2009 http://metropoles.centrepompidou.fr/intervenant.php?id=15