New museums in Spain

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Since the 1990s, Spanish museum architecture has flourished, leading even small towns to create remarkable museum buildings, exemplified by Frank O. Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Beyond international stars, Spanish architects have designed unique museums that transform towns, such as the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León in León by Mansilla + Tuñon. Rafael Moneo remains a leading figure, recently completing an annex for the Museo del Prado, while newer architects trained under him, like Mansilla + Tuñon, are gaining international recognition, along with fresh graduates successfully designing museums. Spanish architects employ diverse formal languages but share key characteristics: they avoid Postmodernism, reinterpret regional traditions in modern ways, and respond sensitively to local topographies. Kenneth Frampton noted that Spanish architecture often counters globalization's trend towards homogenized aesthetics. This book, also a museum guide, highlights this distinctive approach in new museums, affirming the world-class status of Spanish architecture from Moneo’s early Museo Nacional de Arte Romano in Mérida to Herzog & de Meuron’s CaixaForum in Madrid. Klaus Englert, with a background in philosophy and German, has served as an academic adviser and has worked as a freelance culture correspondent and architecture critic for prominent publications.