Andrés Jaque facts for kids

Andrés Jaque is a famous Spanish architect, writer, and curator. An architect is a person who designs buildings. Jaque is known for looking at how architecture affects people, society, and the environment. He thinks about how buildings can be part of a bigger world.

In 2003, he started a company called the Office for Political Innovation. This group doesn't just design buildings. They also research how design can help solve social and environmental problems. For his amazing work, Jaque has won many important awards. These include the Silver Lion at the 2014 Venice Biennale and the 2024 UNESCO Global Award for Sustainable Architecture.

Besides his design work, Andrés Jaque is also a teacher. He is the Dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York City.

Life and Career

Andrés Jaque was born in Madrid, Spain. He studied architecture there and earned his Ph.D. in 2016. He is known for creating unique and thought-provoking buildings and projects all over the world.

What are his most famous projects?

The Priests' House in Plasencia, Spain, was completed in 2004.

Jaque has designed many interesting buildings. Some of his well-known projects include:

• Reggio School: A school in Madrid designed to be a fun and interactive place for learning.
• Ocean Space: A center for art and ocean conservation in a historic church in Venice, Italy.
• Casa Sacerdotal Diocesana de Plasencia: A colorful and modern home for retired priests in Spain.
• House in Never Never Land: A unique house in Ibiza that blends in with the nature around it.
• COSMO MoMA PS1: A giant, movable water purifier built for a museum courtyard in New York. It was designed to clean thousands of gallons of water while also being a fun place for people to gather.

How does he use art to ask questions?

'IKEA Disobedients' was an art piece that showed how real people live, not just how catalogs show them.

Jaque doesn't just build things; he also creates experiments that make people think about architecture in new ways.

One famous project was called IKEA Disobedients. It showed how real families live in their homes, which is often messy and different from the perfect rooms you see in catalogs. This project was so important that it became the first "architectural performance" added to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Another project was PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society. For this, he revealed all the hidden work that goes into keeping a famous building, the Barcelona Pavilion, looking perfect. He showed the buckets, cleaning supplies, and old curtains that are usually kept out of sight. This helped people see the building as a living, changing place.

Teaching and Writing

Andrés Jaque is a respected professor and the Dean at Columbia University's architecture school. He has also taught at other top schools like Princeton University School of Architecture.

He has written many books and articles about his ideas. His writing explores how buildings and cities are connected to nature, technology, and politics. He often writes for major newspapers like El País, sharing his thoughts on architecture with everyone, not just other architects.

Films

Jaque also makes films that explore his ideas about architecture and society. His films look at how our homes are changing because of technology and media. Some of his films include:

• Sales Oddity, which won an award at the Venice Biennale.
• Intimate Strangers, about how dating apps change how we use cities.
• ... Homes, a film that looks at how modern life has changed our private spaces.

The House in Never Never Land in Ibiza was designed to fit into its natural surroundings.