Benedetta Tagliabue

Benedetta Tagliabue is an Italian architect based in Barcelona. Along with Spanish architect Enric Miralles, the pair co-founded EMBT Architects, an international studio, where she is currently the principal and director. Several prominent projects of the firm include the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh and the Gas Natural Building in Barcelona. Tagliabue is also the president of the Enric Miralles Foundation, an architectural research center in Miralles's honor.

WWW Official Site

Early life and education

Tagliabue was born in Milan, Lombardy, to a family originally from Monza. During her youth, Tagliabue spent her time between Italy and Spain. Tagliabue started her architectural studies at the Università Iuav di Venezia in 1981. In 1988, she began to collaborate professionally with the architectural firms Transbuilding and Agrest-Gandelsonas in New York City. Tagliabue eventually graduated from the Università Iuav di Venezia in 1989.

Career

In 1991, Tagliabue won first prize with her thesis in the "Biennal Joves de Barcelona". In the following year, before the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, she started a relationship with Enric Miralles.

EMBT

In 1994, Tagliabue and Miralles formed the Barcelona-based architecture firm Miralles Tagliabue EMBT, later renamed Benedetta Tagliabue - EMBT. In 1995, the firm won the National Architecture Award of Spain for a boarding school in Morella. Miralles' most important projects, the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh and the multi-storied Gas Natural building in Barcelona, were finished by Tagliabue after his death in 2000, along with the remodelling of Barcelona's Santa Caterina market.Tagliabue worked on the Spanish Pavilion completed for the 2010 Shanghai Expo.
In 2022, Tagliabue's home featured in Apple TV's Home in season 2, where she detailed the construction and renovation of her and her late husband's Barcelona gothic villa.

Academic career

In 2004, Tagliabue received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Napier University and she is a member of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. Tagliabue teaches at the University of Architecture ETSAB in Barcelona and lectures regularly in architectural forums.

Awards judge

Benedetta has been a juror in the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Princesa de Asturias de las Artes, Loewe Craft Prize, RIBA Jencks Awards, and the 2024 RIBA Stirling Prize.

Selected work

The Scottish Parliament Building, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
House at La Clota, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Six houses, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Utrecht City Hall extension, Netherlands
Extension of the Music School, Hamburg, Germany
Set design for the opera "Don Quijote", Liceu Theatre, Barcelona, Spain
Hafen City public spaces in Hamburg, Germany
Parc de Diagonal Mar, Barcelona, Spain
Vigo University Campus, Vigo, Spain
Santa Caterina Market, Barcelona, Spain
Principal Building University Campus at Vigo
Gas Natural Building
Palafolls Public Library, Palafolls, Spain
Acoustic panels for Gran Via traffic way renovation in Barcelona
Social housing in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain
Scenery for Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Spanish Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010
Plaza Ricard Viñes, Lleida, Spain
Fudan University Business School in Shanghai, China.
Clichy-Montfermeil metro station in Paris, France
Office towers in Taichung, Taiwan
The Church and Parish Complex San Giacomo Apóstolo in Ferrara, awarded the Dedalo Minosse International Prize.
Centro Direzionale station in Naples, Italy

Awards

2001 Rietveld Prize for the Utrecht town Council, The Netherlands
2001 Premi Nacional de Catalunya for Santa Caterina Market in Barcelona
2002 BDA Hamburg Architektur Preis for the Music School of Hamburg
2002 National Architectural Prize of Catalonia
2004 Honorary doctorate from Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland
2004 Premio FAD de Arquitectura in for the University Campus in Vigo
2005 RIBA Stirling Prize for the Scottish Parliament Building
2005 Honour Award of the American Society of Landscape Architects for the Diagonal Mar Park in Barcelona
2005 Premio de la Bienal de Arquitectura Española for the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.
2006 Prize Leone d'Oro at the Biennale di Venezia for the Pavilion dedicated to the Sports Hall of Huesca, Aragon, for the Biennal of Venice 1996, VI International Exhibition of Architecture. "Sensori del Futuro: l'Architetto come Sismografo". Director Hans Hollein.
2006 Spanish National Architectural Prize
2009 Prize Ciutat de Barcelona
2010 Category International projection The Spanish Pavilion Exhibition Shanghai
2011 RIBA Best International Building Award
2011-2022 Princesa de Asturias de las Artes Jury Member
2013 RIBA Charles Jencks Award
2019 Sant Jordi Cross from the Generalitat de Catalunya
2020 The Leadership Award at Piranesi Prix de Rome
2021 The Leadership Award at the Smart City Expo World Congress
2022 Member of Pontificia Accademia dei Virtuosi al Pantheon Rome
2022 Dedalo Minosse International Prize
2022 Prix Le Soufaché l’Académie d’Architecture Paris
2023 Global Award for Sustainable Architecture

Publications

2009 EL CROQUIS, N. 144. EMBT 2000 2009 ENRIC MIRALLES BENEDETTA TAGLIABUE After-life in progress.
2008 AA. Arquitecturas de Author 2006. EMBT Miralles-Tagliabue..
2007 Benedetta Tagliabue "Eating the City" Workshop Printemps 2007. ESA Productions.
2006 ACTAR, Catalan College of Architects, Ministry of Housing, Barcelona City Hall, Works in Progress, revised and extended edition
2004 Architecture drawn. The project of Miralles Tagliabue for Diagonal Mar.
2003 Loft / teNeues, Miralles Tagliabue EMBT Arquitectes
2000 El Croquis N.100 101, Enric Miralles Benedetta Tagliabue 1996–2000
1999 GG. Miralles Tagliabue time architecture. Architecture Monograph, Editorial Gustavo Gili
1995 Mixed Talks, a book about the latest projects of the Miralles Office was published by Academy Editions.
1996 Monographic issue of their work KA Korean Architects. Edited Enric Miralles: opere e Progetti, published by Electa