Andrés Jaque facts for kids

Priests House in Plasencia, built in 2004.

'IKEA Disobedients' was an art project about homes and cities, shown at MoMA in 2012.

The House in Never Never Land, located in Ibiza.

Andrés Jaque is a famous architect, writer, and curator from Spain. He has won many important awards for his work. In 2016, he received the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts. He also won the UNESCO Global Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2024. In 2014, he earned the Silver Lion for Best Project at the 14th Venice Biennale.

Andrés Jaque believes that architecture is more than just building. He thinks about how buildings and cities connect to bigger ideas about the world and society. In 2003, he started the Office for Political Innovation. This group mixes design, research, and environmental action to create new ideas.

He is also the head (Dean) of a big architecture school at Columbia University, called the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Andrés Jaque's Life and Career

Andrés Jaque has designed many award-winning buildings and projects. These include the Reggio School in El Encinar de los Reyes, built in 2020. He also worked on the Babin Yar Museum of Memory and Oblivion in Kyiv. In Venice, he designed the Ocean Space for Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art in 2018.

Some of his other notable projects are the Casa Sacerdotal Diocesana de Plasencia (2004) and the Teddy House in Vigo (2003, 2005). He also created the House in Never Never Land in Ibiza (2009). In Madrid, he designed the ESCARAVOX (2012), Hänsel and Gretel's Arenas (2013), Rómola (2018), and RunRunRun (2019). He also worked on COSMO PS1 in New York City.

Exploring Architecture's Role in Society

Andrés Jaque has also created special architectural experiments. These projects help people think about how buildings and design affect politics and society.

One project, called 12 Actions to Make Peter Eisenman Transparent (2010), showed the hidden political parts of building the Cidade da Cultura in Santiago de Compostela. A famous thinker, Bruno Latour, described this project as a "beautiful mixture of art, politics and building-site."

In 2012, Jaque created an art piece called ‘PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society’ at the Barcelona Pavilion. This work showed all the everyday things that make the famous pavilion work. It included buckets, flags, and even old curtains from the basement. This project is now part of the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago.

His work 'IKEA Disobedients' (2012) was a special architectural performance. It was the first time an architectural performance was added to the collection of the MoMA in New York. He also took part in the performance art festival Performa 21 with his work Being Silica in 2021.

Teaching and Curating

Andrés Jaque has a PhD in architecture. He has been a professor at Columbia University GSAPP and a visiting professor at other top universities. These include Princeton University School of Architecture and the Cooper Union.

He was the main curator for the 13th Shanghai Art Biennale, an important art show, which was called ‘Bodies of Water’. He also helped curate Manifesta 12 in Palermo, an art event titled ‘The Planetary Garden. Cultivating Coexistence’.

In 2024, Jaque was part of a group of experts who advised on the first Ammodo Architecture Awards.

Books by Andrés Jaque

Andrés Jaque and his Office for Political Innovation have written many books. These books help us understand how architecture and cities connect to environmental issues and politics.

Some of their books include:

• ‘Superpowers of Scale’. Columbia Press. 2020
• 'Mies y la gata Niebla. Ensayos sobre arquitectura y cosmopolítica'. Puente Editores. 2018
• ‘More-Than-Human’ With M. Otero and L. Pietroiusti. Idea Books. 2020
• 'PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society'. Fundació Mies van der Rohe 2013.
• ‘Andrés Jaque. Everyday Politics’. EA! Ediciones. 2011.
• ‘Dulces Arenas Cotidianas’. Lugadero. 2013.
• 'Calculable-Transmaterial'. ARQ. 2017.
• 'Different Kinds of Water Pouring Into A Swimming Pool'. RedCat CalArts. 2014

Jaque also writes for newspapers and magazines. He has written for important architectural magazines like El Croquis and Domus. He also writes for general audiences in places like Babelia, the cultural section of El País. From 2013 to 2016, he wrote a regular column called "Cuarto de estar en la galaxia" in El País Semanal.

Selected Films

Andrés Jaque has also created films related to his architectural ideas:

• ‘Sales Oddity. Milano 2 and the politics of direct-to-home TV-urbanism’ (2014). This film won the Silver Lion for Best Project at the 2014 Venice Biennale.
• ‘Pornified Homes’. Oslo. 2018
• ‘The Transscalar Architecture of Covid 19’ by Andrés Jaque and Iván L. Munuera. 2020

See also

In Spanish: Andrés Jaque para niños