The Traditional Building Cultures Foundation seeks to foster and promote the study, protection, teaching, dissemination and conservation of the traditional building, architecture and urbanism characteristic of the various regions of the world
The traditional building arts have over the centuries accumulated the wisdom of countless generations concerning the sustainable use of a place’s resources and the basic principles for applying them in creating beautiful, sustainable and comfortable habitats and environments.
These building traditions are the fruit of our culture and territory, a mark of identity making the architecture of each region unique and forming an irreplaceable store of knowledge about our environment and how to inhabit it, not just in an eco-friendly way but also to our long-term benefit. Yet today they are on the verge of extinction, as is, consequently, a vital part of our culture and heritage.
The contemporary practice of traditional building, architecture and urbanism is, however, a living reality. Many practitioners even today excel in their continuation and are fine exponents of the craftsmanship of those who went before.
Identifying, studying, promoting and disseminating best practice in these fields and educating new generations in their significance for the future of our civilisation and our environment are the chief aims of this Foundation.
We can continue creating buildings, towns and places as beautiful, lasting and sustainable as those made by former generations.
In carrying out its mission, this Foundation’s main lines of action are:
In 2010 in Chicago, Rafael Manzano Martos received the Richard H. Driehaus Prize, the largest international award devoted to recognising the career of architects who have stood out in the contemporary practice of classical and traditional architecture. At the award ceremony, Richard H. Driehaus, a great admirer of Rafael and his work, announced that he would be supporting the creation in Spain of a prize in his honour, bearing Rafael’s name.
In 2012, thanks to the School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana) and to support from the Mapfre Foundation and the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, the first Rafael Manzano Prize for New Traditional Architecture was awarded in Spain, honouring the work of Leopoldo Gil Cornet, and the prize has since been given annually to architects working in Spain, firstly, and as of 2017, thanks to the Serra Henriques Foundation and the High Patronage of the President of Portuguese Republic, also for work in Portugal, with José Baganha being the first Portuguese laureate, thereby extending the initiative to all of Iberia.
This prize was from the outset to be accompanied by numerous academic, training and dissemination activities intended to carry the present-day continuation of our building traditions to a wider public. These initiatives were created and coordinated as of 2012 by Alejandro García Hermida, starting with a series of lectures that year which gave rise to the successive conferences and seminars held subsequently, and extended in 2014 with a Summer school as a trial run for what would become our Traditional Architecture Summer School, aimed at an international public and held annually at different locations in Spain and Portugal.
New projects for the promotion of the traditional building cultures
This work expanded considerably in 2016 when, with the support of Richard H. Driehaus and the collaboration of the Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute (IPCE), we set up the Spanish Network of Traditional Building Crafts Masters , a widely recognised project seen as a benchmark internationally; and, in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Ministry of Development and the Spanish High Council of Institutes of Architects, we established the Richard H. Driehaus Awards for the Building Arts, to annually distinguish outstanding masters of traditional building trades, along with the Architecture Competition of the same name, and the Donald Gray Grants for the Building Arts.
These new projects led to Rebeca Gómez-Gordo Villa joining the team in 2016, along with Guillermo Gil Fernández in 2019, together with the creation of a wider team to roll out the Masters’ Network in 2016-18, with others coming on board to maintain and update the network since then. These various projects were also adopted by INTBAU in 2017 and thenceforth pursued under its auspices.
Our projects were accompanied from the outset by numerous exhibitions, videos and publications, and various series of books published as of 2013. Among these we may highlight Timeless Architecture and Donald Gray: The Most Beautiful Designs of Traditional Neighbourhoods in Andalusia, both in 2022, and what was to prove our publication with most international reach: the Journal of Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanismissued annually both in print and digitally since 2020.
Over this journey we have been joined by many institutions, entities and individuals that share our aims and have progressively supported our activities in one way or another: Kalam, the Ekaba Foundation, the Botín Foundation, the Arquia Foundation, the Union for the Mediterranean, various Spanish and Portuguese government bodies, both local and regional, and a large number of universities and training centres. Also important in this process, for various reasons, have been people such as Robert Adam, José Baganha, Aina Batllé, María Brañas, Carolina Cabra, Javier Cenicacelaya, Melissa DelVecchio, Natalia Escalada, Michael Gallo, Leopoldo Gil, Léon Krier, Michael Lykoudis, Javier Martín Ramiro, Frank Martínez, Ramón Mayo, Anselmo Menéndez, Pedro Navascués, Irene Pérez-Porro Stillman, Rita Pinto Coelho, Stefanos Polyzoides, Alexandre Resende, Lucien Steil, María Pía Timón, Harriet Wennberg, Carol Wyant and Rafael Manzano himself, among many others.
In 2021, with the loss of the person whose vision gave rise to these projects, namely Richard H. Driehaus, we saw a need to set up a new entity allowing us to reach a wider public and to progress towards the aims set initially: leveraging the creation and conservation of beautiful and lasting places and built environments, looking to the future yet without neglecting our culture and its roots.
Founded by José Baganha, Juan de Dios de la Hoz Martínez, María Sierra Expósito Provencio, Alejandro García Hermida, Leopoldo Gil Cornet, Irene Pérez-Porro Stillman, Luis Prieto Prieto, Álvaro Pozo Sánchez and Álvaro Soria García-Pomareda, this new entity, the Traditional Building Cultures Foundation, came into being in Madrid in 2023.
Board of Trustees
The governance, administration and representation of the Foundation rests with its Board of Trustees, consisting of:
First Vice-President, Trustee and Founder.
A graduate in Architecture of the Oporto School of Fine Arts and Lisbon Technical University (UTL), with a PhD from the Basque Country University (UPV). In 1991 he founded his own practice, from which he designed residential, hotel, retail and urbanism projects that continue the traditions of the regions in which he works. He has lectured at the Architecture Faculties of the Portuguese Catholic University in Viseu and Sintra and been a visiting lecturer at several European universities. He founded INTBAU Portugal, cofounded the European Council of Spatial Planners and is a member of the board of the Architectural Heritage Chapter of the Portuguese Institute of Architects. The quality of his work has earned him international awards such as the 2011 European Prize for the Reconstruction of the City given by the Philippe Rotthier Foundation, or the Rafael Manzano Prize in 2017.
Trustee and Founder.
A graduate in Architecture of the Madrid Polytechnic University (ETSAM), with a master’s degree in Public Management, Public Policy and Taxation. Since 2017 she has been an official in the Senior Cadastral Management Corps. Currently she is Division Manager at the Department for Spatial Services and Coordination of the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration, coordinating, in her technical facet, the optimisation of built heritage and the worksites of the Ministry’s 52 revenue offices in Spain’s regions. She has been Deputy Director General for Services and Coordination and Secretariat Technical Bureau Advisory Member, in both cases at the Ministry for Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. Her prior professional experience chiefly concerned the conservation and maintenance of the built heritage of various ministries. She has on several occasions been a member of the exam board of the Finance Ministry Architects Corps.
Trustee and Founder.
An architect qualified at the Madrid Higher School of Architecture, with an MA in Heritage Restoration and Refurbishment from the Universities of Valladolid and Alcalá de Henares. He lectured at the Camilo José Cela University in Madrid in 2003-13 and has spoken at various conferences and workshops on heritage and restoration at several universities in Spain and abroad. In 1998 he founded his practice, Lavila Arquitectos, devoted to the restoration of monumental and historic ensembles, now with growing international activity. Among other distinctions, he has received the 2017 Europa Nostra Award for the restoration of six churches in Lorca damaged by the earthquake of May 2011, the Madrid Region Culture Prize, and the 2018 Rafael Manzano Prize for Traditional New Architecture.
President, Trustee and Founder.
A graduate in Architecture of the Navarra University School of Architecture, where he was later a lecturer and Coordinator of the Architectural Refurbishment and Restoration specialisation programme. He has served as an architect in the Historic Heritage Department of the Navarra Government’s Directorate General for Culture–Príncipe de Viana Institute since 1986. During his time in this body his restoration work on various Navarran historic buildings and ensembles has been honoured with the National Prize for the Restoration and Conservation of Cultural Assets (1998), the Silver Medal of the Spanish Association of Friends of Castles (2000), the 2012 Europa Nostra EU Cultural Heritage Award, and the 2012 Rafael Manzano Prize for New Traditional Architecture, among other distinctions. He is a member of the Partal Academy and of the Catalan Sant Jordi Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
Trustee and Founder.
An Economics and Business Administration graduate of the CUNEF Higher College of Financial Studies, with 26 years’ experience in finance and consulting services in multinational technology, telecommunications, energy and professional services firms. He supplemented his studies with a master’s degree in Latin American Economics and Economic Policy at the Madrid Complutense University. He worked for eight years in PwC and IBM as a consultant on start-ups of new telecoms operators. He later joined the finance team at Jazztel, Indra and Ignis Group, in which over the past 18 years he has held managerial responsibilities in every financial sphere in multicultural environments in Spain, the Americas and Europe, where he has contributed to functional and organisational transformations.
Vice-President, Trustee and Founder.
A master stuccoist and painter with wide experience in interior and exterior work on heritage and vernacular buildings. He learned his trade by family tradition and supplemented his education with studies in painting, drawing, stucco, colorimetry, manufacture of colours and paints, restoration, etc., in Spain, Germany, Belgium and France, at institutions such as the Van Der Kelen-Logelain Higher School of Painting in Brussels and Les Ateliers du Beaucet in France, and he has collaborated with notable European artisans such Vincent Tripard in France, or the expert in lime and plaster work Ignacio Gárate Rojas. From his workshop in Madrid he applies traditional techniques with traditionally made materials and has been involved in the restoration of countless Spanish historic buildings. He also researches, documents and disseminates these procedures and delivers talks and workshops at craft schools and universities in Spain and abroad. He is co-author of the book Artes de los yesos (Plaster arts), and in 2019 he received the Richard H. Driehaus Award for the Building Arts as well as being the master craftsperson selected for the Donald Gray Scholarship.
A graduate in Law and in Business Administration from the Madrid Complutense University,
he has devoted his career to the sphere of consultancy on financial investment and estate and tax planning. He has held executive private banking positions in Madrid in various financial advisory companies and in financial institutions. He is a member of the European Financial Planning Association (EFPA), as European Financial Advisor. In 2015 he took part in the Terrachidia earthen architecture and construction workshop at Ksar Chourfa in southern Morocco, which awakened in him an interest in local heritage conservation.
This Foundation enjoys the partnership of patrons and philanthropists who share its aims, and accordingly support its activities. Thanks to their support it has been possible for its initiatives to be deployed since 2012.
A Chicago philanthropist and businessman who for decades fostered and honoured those working around the globe to build a more beautiful and sustainable world. He gave substantial support to charitable initiatives and organisations engaged in promoting the conservation of heritage and traditional building, architecture and urbanism, including those giving rise to the creation of this Foundation. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of DePaul in Chicago and was an Honorary Member of the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. Many institutions recognised the importance of this patronage internationally, with awards such as those conferred by the Society of Architectural Historians, the American Institute of Architects, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Landmarks Illinois, or the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation, among many others.
Ramón Mayo is Chairman of Kalam, a firm which he founded in 1987, specialising in the conservation and refurbishment of monumental and historic buildings, working first in Spain and later also in other countries of Europe, the Americas and Africa. Kalam has now been involved in the conservation of 35 historic buildings declared World Heritage sites by UNESCO, and has subsidiaries in Chile, the US, France and Portugal, among other countries, along with a team of over 700 professionals, craftspeople, and masters of traditional trades and techniques worldwide. The company also has its own craft trade school (EOAK) to train future masters of heritage conservation. Kalam also promotes and participates in actions involving culture and heritage, and, among other distinctions, has received the EU Europa Nostra Special Mention in the category of Dedicated Service to Heritage.
The Foundation’s Advisory Board consists of a set of outstanding professionals in several fields who contribute their experience in various ways for the purposes of decision-making and defining the strategy to be followed in the initiatives run by the Foundation.
Advisor.
A master craftsman and builder belonging to the third generation of a family of master builders from Toledo. He is co-founder of the company Rehabilitaciones y Construcciones ADEVA SL, which has allowed him to explore other trades with the firm’s craftspeople. Working on the rich built heritage of Toledo has for Jesús been a source of ongoing education in traditional building materials and techniques. Over his career he has taken part in countless courses and workshops on a range of traditional building techniques, leading him to constantly enlarge his knowledge of the trade and to come into contact with many masters of diverse building trades. He has also given courses in the theory and practice of building on real worksites through various schools, media, and institutions such as the Toledo Heritage Consortium or the Castilla La Mancha University School of Architecture. In 2022 he won the Richard H. Driehaus Building Arts Award and his work has been shown at the exhibitions Timeless Architecture (CentroCentro, Madrid, 2022) and Living Heritage (Museum of Santa Cruz, Toledo, 2023).
Advisor.
An architect qualified at the University of Navarra (UPNA), Professor of Architectural Composition at the Basque Country University (UPV), with an MA from Oxford Brookes, an MSc from Oxford University and a PhD from the University of Navarra. He has been Visiting Scholar at the Institute for the Arts and the Humanities at the John Paul Getty Foundation in Los Angeles, Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Miami, and editor of the journal Composición Arquitectonica, Art & Architecture.. He is cofounding Chair of INTBAU España and practises as an architect with Iñigo Saloña. Together they have built a range of buildings in Spain and the US always consistent with context and local precedent, and have received various recognitions, including the Bizkaia Architecture Award (1988 and 1989), Young Spanish Architects Award (1990), Basque-Navarra Institute of Architects Award (1991, 2003, 2007), City of Burgos Architecture Award (1992), European Philippe Rotthier Prize for the Reconstruction of the City (1992 and 1995), National Builders Council of America Award (1997), CNU Charter Award (2003) and Rafael Manzano Prize for New Traditional Architecture 2014.
Advisor.
An architect graduated from the University of Notre Dame and with an M.Arch from Yale University. She joined the firm Robert A.M. Stern Architects in 1998, of which she has been a partner since 2008. Her works include Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University in Beijing; two new residential ensembles at Yale University; two buildings for the Harvard Business School and one for the Harvard Law School; the Stayer Center for Executive Education at the University of Notre Dame; the Heavener Hall at the University of Florida; and the new Business College at the University of Nebraska. Formerly she worked with Scott Merril on residential and commercial projects in the towns of Seaside and Windsor, designed by Duany Plater-Zyberk in Florida, and for Mark P. Finlay Architects in Connecticut on a variety of residential projects. She has lectured at Yale University and been a visiting lecturer at professional associations and other universities, such as the University of Notre Dame or the Polytechnic University of Madrid.
Advisor.
Director of BEST IMAGEN, Corporate Communication and Imaging, board member at the Madrid Press Association, and member of the Repsol Advisory Committee.
She was part of the founding team of the newspaper El Mundo and was its associate editor for several years, as well as creating its Magazine. She took part in the creation of the political magazine Tiempo, of which she was deputy editor, and of the magazine Tribuna, of which she was editorial advisor. In the audiovisual industry, she directed the international and institutional relations department of Tele 5. She worked in the offices of the Spanish prime ministers Adolfo Suárez, as personal assistant, and Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, in his press department. She has taken part in TV and radio current affairs programmes, lectured at North American universities and published articles and interviews in El Mundo, Yo Dona, and El Economista. She belongs to the International Women’s Forum and has been a member of its board of directors. She belongs to the Columbia and Fulbright Alumni Associations. She took an MA in journalism at Columbia University with a Fulbright grant and another from Coca-Cola, and took a communication course with the Vice-President of General Motors at its headquarters in Detroit.
Advisor.
An architecture and urbanism consultant, as well as a designer, author and lecturer. He is known for his pioneering role in advocating the rationality and the technological, ecological and social modernity of traditional urbanism and architecture. He studied at Stuttgart University in 1967, but gave up his course to work with James Stirling in 1968-74. Since then he has combined writing and teaching with the practice of urban planning and architecture at various locations in Europe and the Americas. He has lectured at the Architectural Association and the Royal College of Arts in London as well as at the universities of Princeton, Virginia, Notre Dame and Yale. From 1987 he was advisor to the Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, and responsible for general planning and architectural coordination at Poundbury in Dorset. Other outstanding developments of his are Heulebrug in Belgium, built to his 2000 masterplan in collaboration with DPZ; and in Guatemala, with Estudio Urbano, Paseo Cayalá, since 2003, El Socorro, since 2015, and Nogales, since 2020. Currently Krier is developing new urban projects in Virginia, Colorado and England. Also, since 1990, he has worked concurrently as an industrial designer for Giorgetti and Assa Abloy.
Advisor.
Michael has devoted his career to building, studying and advocating traditional architecture and urbanism. He was Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame from 2004 to 2020, where he was the main organiser of the curriculum centred on traditional architecture and urbanism, and where he has served as professor since 1991. His activities feature the organisation of several conferences in collaboration with bodies such as the Classical Architecture League, the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America, A Vision of Europe and the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU), as well as coediting of the publications Building Cities (1999) and the exhibition catalogue for The Other Modern (2000). (2000). From 2003 he developed the Richard H. Driehaus Prize and he has been a member of the Rafael Manzano Prize jury since 2012. A graduate of Cornell University, Michael earned his master’s degree from the University of Illinois’ joint Business Administration and Architecture programme. He has worked as an architect for firms in Florida, Greece, Connecticut and New York. He has led his own practice since 1983 in Athens; in Stamford, Connecticut; and in South Bend, Indiana.
Advisor.
An graduate in Architecture of the Madrid Polytechnic University, and since 1966 professor of General Art History at the Seville University School of Architecture, where he is also Dean. He has devoted his life to the study of Classicism and in particular the Islamic world, and he has built new traditional buildings and restored numerous historic constructions in Spain, the US and the Middle East. He was Director-Conservator at the Reales Alcázares palace in Seville and the caliphal town of Medina Azahara near Córdoba, and chaired the works committee of the Royal Board of Trustees for the Alhambra and the Generalife. He is a member of many Spanish academic bodies, including the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts. His work has been distinguished with the Gold Medal for the Fine Arts, among other awards, and he is also Commander (with a plaque) of the Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise. He also won the Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture in 2010, prompting Richard Driehaus to institute a prize in Spain bearing his name – the Rafael Manzano Prize – and thereby originating the initiatives run today by this Foundation and giving rise to all that we do.
Advisor and Founder.
Irene graduated in Humanities at the Barcelona Central University, specialising in Modern and Contemporary History, in 1976. She worked first in the field of urbanism and architecture within the movement for the conservation of historic town centres. In 1979 she moved to New York and began working in the media as New York correspondent for Spanish Radio and Television. In the 1990s she worked for the family firms Stillman International, Riley Illustrations and Westerley Projects, active in the fields of cinema, illustration and film production. In the late 1990s she moved to Paris, where she worked in French and British production companies. From 2008 in Madrid she coordinated two documentary series, Abierto Arquitectura and Madrid Arquitectura, as well as the content of various film festivals in Madrid and Seville. With her personal and professional partnership since 2008 with Léon Krier, she has become increasingly involved in project coordination and communication work, including publishing projects. In 2010 she made a film devoted to the work of Rafael Manzano Martos for submission to the Richard H. Driehaus Prize, awarded to him that same year by the Notre Dame University School of Architecture, and she played a key role in the creation of the Rafael Manzano New Traditional Architecture Prize and the formation of the initial team responsible for these initiatives. Since 2012 she has made films on the laureates of the latter prize, and, since 2019, also on the work honoured by the Richard H. Driehaus Medal for Heritage Preservation.
Advisor.
An Architecture and Urbanism graduate of the University of Princeton. His career has engaged with a broad span of architecture and urbanism, along with their history, theory, design and teaching. He is cofounder of the Congress for the New Urbanism and, with his wife Elizabeth Moule, a partner in the firm Moule & Polyzoides, since they established it in Pasadena, California, in 1990. From 1973 to 1997 he was Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California and currently he is Dean of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture (Indiana). He is co-author of Los Angeles Courtyard Housing: A Typological Analysis (1977), The Plazas of New Mexico (2012), and author of R.M. Schindler, Architect (1982), among many other publications. He has also helped recover significant parts of the architectural and urban history of Southern California by organising exhibitions such as Caltech 1910–1950: An Urban Architecture for Southern California, Myron Hunt 1868–1952: The Search for a Regional Architecture, Wallace Neff: The Romance of Regional Architecture, andJohnson, Kaufmann & Coate: Partners in the California Style.
Advisor.
For a decade Alexandre was lecturer and director at the marketing agency of Hewlett-Packard in Portugal and, in 2010-12, he was in charge of business and corporate diplomacy for the British Luxury Network at the UK embassies in Portugal and Qatar. Since 2012 he has represented the President’s Office of the Serra Henriques Foundation in institutional cooperation programmes with universities, professional associations and Portuguese government scholarships for cultural heritage protection and spatial development, notably including the implementation of the Portuguese National Architecture and Landscape Plan. Also in this field he is Commissioner of the Permanent Representative Chamber in Portugal of the European Network of Cities and Regions for Culture (LikeCulture), established in 1994 by the European Commission and the Foreign Ministries of the EU Member States. In collaboration with the Portuguese Institute of Architects and Academy, he administers the National University Prize for Architecture and Urbanism (Archiprix).
The team that plans, organises and conducts the activities run by the Foundation consists of:
Non-Trustee Secretary, Executive Director and Founder.
PhD in Architecture and MA in Conservation and Restoration of Architectural Heritage from the Madrid Polytechnic University School of Architecture, where he has been Associate Professor since 2019.
He has been Associate Professor at the Alfonso X el Sabio University (2009-19), Visiting Scholar at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture (US, 2016) and guest lecturer at universities such as Yale, Miami, Colorado, Liverpool or Politecnico di Milano, among others. His professional practice has been devoted to traditional architecture and building and the restoration and study of historic buildings, largely in Spain and Morocco, along with the creation and management since 2012, thanks to Richard H. Driehaus, of the initiatives run today by this Foundation. He is also the CEO of Kalam Corporation in the USA, a board member of the NGO Terrachidia and cofounding Vice-Chair of INTBAU Spain. Recognitions of this work include the 2015 INTBAU Excellence Award, the 2019 Hispania Nostra Award, a Special Mention in the 2019 EU-Europa Nostra Awards, the 2021 Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Prize, and the 2021 National Craft Award.
Non-Trustee Deputy Secretary and Project Coordinator.
A graduate in Architecture, specialising in Precarious Human Settlements, of the Madrid Polytechnic University. She has taken part in various restoration projects in Casamance (Senegal) and collaborated in the coordination of various workshops for the restoration of historic buildings and earthen constructions with the NGO Terrachidia in Morocco. She has been Secretary and Treasurer of INTBAU España since 2016 and, thanks to Richard H. Driehaus, is part of the team which since 2016 has created and coordinated the initiatives run by this Foundation. Recognitions of this work include the 2019 Hispania Nostra Award, a Special Mention in the 2019 EU-Europa Nostra Awards, and the 2021 National Craft Award.
Project Coordinator.
A graduate in Architecture of the Madrid Polytechnic University, with a degree in Psychology from the UNED University. For over five years he has been General Coordinator of the French cultural centre Domaine de Boisbuchet, where he has organised courses, exhibitions and residential workshops linked to art, design and architecture. He is also responsible for the collection, library and archive of Alexander von Vegesack, founder of the Vitra Design Museum and a renowned collector. Since 2019 he has been part of the team which has created and coordinated the initiatives run by this Foundation. Recognitions of this work include the 2019 Hispania Nostra Award, a Special Mention in the 2019 EU-Europa Nostra Awards, and the 2021 National Craft Award.
Masters’ Network Update Manager.
A graduate in Architecture from the Málaga University School of Architecture, she is currently completing an MA in Architecture and Historic Heritage at the University of Seville. She works professionally as an architect with the Bastidas Architecture practice, founded by Sergi Bastidas (Rafael Manzano New Traditional Architecture Laureate 2021). She has worked for Kalam, a specialist firm in historic building conservation and refurbishment, and at various architecture practices in Spain and the Netherlands, as well as on a freelance basis in refurbishment projects. She is part of the coordination team of the Spanish Network of Traditional Building Crafts Masters, and contributed to the coordination of the Azores Traditional Architecture Summer School in 2022.
Designer and Director of Exhibition Installation.
An Interior Architecture graduate of the Madrid Polytechnic University. After working for the architects’ practice Teresa Sapey and Partners for two years, running various design projects (furniture design, private homes, retail premises and events), in 2014 she set up her own firm, Carmita Design, to cater for other kinds of creative and interior design projects. She has designed residential, commercial and event spaces in various cities in Spain and the UK, and has been part of the Madrid Polytechnic University graphic design and communication office for its Interior Design degree. Since 2017 she has been in charge of graphic and exhibition design and managing the installation of the exhibitions mounted annually by the Traditional Building Cultures Foundation team and INTBAU.
Creator of audiovisual content.
A Product Design graduate of the Madrid Higher School of Design and Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Gdańsku in Poland. He has worked in projects on various scales in the field of design and communication with institutions such as the Prado Museum, Matadero Madrid, Art Education Lab, INTBAU or Oficina Penadés, among others. Currently he is head of communication and programme coordinator at Domaine de Boisbuchet in France, an experimental centre in the field of design and architecture, and since 2021 he has been the Foundation’s creator of audiovisual content.
Organisation of events.
A graduate in History and Geography from the Madrid Complutense University, she took the Geography PhD at that university and received a postgraduate grant to study Architecture at the University of Rome.
In those years she took part as a historian in various proposals within the Madrid General Urban Development Plan and received a citation in the Planning Department’s 11th Urbanism, Architecture and Public Works Awards 1996. Later she specialised in cultural management and worked for several years at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, coordinating exhibitions and setting up an education office at the Mapfre Vida Culture Foundation. In those years she took the Music, Theatre and Dance Cultural Management MA delivered by the Spanish Copyright Association (SGAE) with the Complutense Institute of Musical Sciences. Since 2005 she has been part of the Arts Exclusive team, alongside Aina Batlle and Beatriz Bunzl, which connects culture with the world of business, designing and producing private events such as concerts and museum viewings or events mounted as part of the ARCOmadrid contemporary art fair. Since 2014 Arts Exclusive has given organisational support to events organised by this Foundation.
Organisation of events.
A graduate in Economics from the Madrid Autonomous University, including a one-year exchange programme at the University of Amsterdam, she took MA studies in Marketing, Sales and Technology at ADM Business School. She began her career in the mobile telephony company Orange, in the strategic planning department, but her vocation for art and events soon prompted her to join the team of Arts Exclusive, where she has worked since 2006, while also being project director for the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). One notable project in her time at Arts Exclusive was the 2013 International Volunteer Summit in partnership with the US embassy, with the presence of HRH the then Prince Felipe and leading politicians of the moment. Since 2014, together with María Brañas, she has managed the logistics of events organised by this Foundation.
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