JOSE RAFAEL MONEO was born in Tudela in the province of Navarra (Spain) in May of 1937. He obtained his architectural degree in 1961 from the Escuela Técnica Superior of Madrid. In 1963 he was awarded a fellowship at the Spanish Academy in Rome where he remained until 1965. Upon his return to Spain he opened his office in Madrid and began teaching at the Escuela Técnica Superior of Madrid (1966-1970). In 1970 he won a teaching chair in architectural theory at the Escuela Técnica Superior of Barcelona where he was professor until 1980. From 1980 to 1985 he was chaired professor of composition at the Escuela Técnica Superior of Madrid. In 1985 Rafael Moneo was appointed Chairman of the Architecture Department of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, a position he held until 1990. In 1991 he was named Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design where he continues to teach. Rafael Moneo combines his professional activity as an architect with that as lecturer, critic and theoretician. His writings have been published in the foremost professional magazines and the presentation of his work through lectures and exhibitions has taken him to numerous institutions on both sides of the Atlantic.

‍

In 1996 Rafael Moneo was awarded the Pritzker Prize in Architecture. In 2003 Rafael Moneo was awarded the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in 2012 the Prince of Asturias Prize in the Arts, the National Spanish Architecture Prize 2015 or in 2017 the Praemiun Imperiale of Japan. Other prizes and distinctions received by Rafael Moneo are the Gold Medal for Achievement in the Fine Arts by the Spanish Government (1992), the Prince of Viana Prize from the Government of the Province of Navarra (Spain) (1993), Schock Prize in the Visual Arts awarded by the Schock Foundation and the Swedish Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm (1993), the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York (1993), the Gold Medal of the French Academy of Architecture and the Gold Medal of the International Union of Architects (1996), the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome (1998), the Creu de Sant Jordi in Barcelona (1999), the Urbanism, Landscape andSustainability Rey Jaime I Prize (2010), the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland President’s Award for Lifetime (2011) and the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture (2012). In 1997 he was elected Académico of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Spain. In 1994 Rafael Moneo received the "Laurea ad Honorem" from the Istituto Universitario di Architettura of Venice. He has also been honored as Doctor Honoris Causa by the C.U. of Leuven in Belgium (1993), the Royal Institute of Technology of Stockholm (1997) and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (2002). Rafael Moneo is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, member of the Accademia di San Luca di Roma, member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Fine Arts and an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, the Royal Institute of British Architects and since 2013 a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.