Benedetta Tagliabue (born 23 June 1963) is an Italian architect based in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

. Along with Spanish architect

Enric Miralles Enric Miralles Moya (12 February 1955 – 3 July 2000) was a Spanish architect from Barcelona. He graduated from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB) at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in 1978. After establishing hi ...

, 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 The Scottish Parliament Building (; ) is the home of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, Edinburgh, Holyrood, within the World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage Site in central Edinburgh. Construction of the building commenced in June 1999 ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

and the

Gas Natural Building The Gas Natural Building, also known as Mare Nostrum Tower, is an office building, office skyscraper located in the La Barceloneta neighbourhood of the Ciutat Vella district in Barcelona, Spain. It was the headquarters building of the Spanish co ...

in Barcelona. Tagliabue is also the president of the Enric Miralles Foundation (Fundació Eric Miralles), an architectural research center in Miralles's honor.

Early life and education

Tagliabue was born in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...

, to a family originally from

Monza Monza (, ; ; , locally ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the Lambro, River Lambro, a tributary of the Po (river), River Po, in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capital of the province of Mo ...

. During her youth, Tagliabue spent her time between Italy and

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. Tagliabue started her architectural studies at the

Università Iuav di Venezia Iuav University of Venice () is a university in Venice, Italy. It was founded in 1926 as the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia as one of the first architecture schools in Italy. The university offers several undergraduate, graduat ...

in 1981. In 1988, she began to collaborate professionally with the architectural firms Transbuilding and Agrest- Gandelsonas in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. 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

". In the following year, before the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, she started a relationship with

(1955–2000).

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

and the multi-storied

Gas Natural building The Gas Natural Building, also known as Mare Nostrum Tower, is an office building, office skyscraper located in the La Barceloneta neighbourhood of the Ciutat Vella district in Barcelona, Spain. It was the headquarters building of the Spanish co ...

in Barcelona, were finished by Tagliabue after his death in 2000, along with the remodelling of Barcelona's Santa Caterina market.Miralles Tagliabue EMBT bio
Retrieved 24 August 2024. Scotparlmph03

Tagliabue worked on the Spanish Pavilion completed for the 2010 Shanghai Expo. In 2022, Tagliabue's home featured in Apple TV's ''

Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or more human occupants, and sometimes various companion animals. Homes provide sheltered spaces, for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be p ...

'' 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 The Doctor of Arts (D.A.; occasionally D.Arts or Art.D. from the Latin language, Latin ''artium doctor'') is a List of academic disciplines, discipline-based terminal degree, terminal doctorate, doctoral academic degree, degree that was originall ...

degree from

Napier University Edinburgh Napier University () is a public university in Edinburgh, Scotland. Napier Technical College, the predecessor of the university, was founded in 1964, taking its name from 16th-century Scottish mathematician and philosopher John Napie ...

and she is a member of the

Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) is the professional body for architects in Scotland. History Previously the (lapsed) Architectural Institute of Scotland, it was re-founded in 1916 as the Incorporation of Architects in ...

. Tagliabue teaches at the University of Architecture ETSAB (Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona) in

and lectures regularly in architectural forums.

Awards judge

Benedetta has been a juror in the

Pritzker Architecture Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment which has produced consisten ...

, Princesa de Asturias de las Artes, Loewe Craft Prize,

RIBA ''Riba'' (, or , ) is an Arabic word used in Islamic law and roughly translated as " usury": unjust, exploitative gains made in trade or business. ''Riba'' is mentioned and condemned in several different verses in the Qur'an3:130

Jencks Awards, and the 2024 RIBA

Stirling Prize The Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize is a British prize for excellence in architecture. It is named after the architect James Stirling, organised and awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The ...

Selected work

*The

, Edinburgh, United Kingdom (1999; completed 2004) *House at La Clota, Barcelona,

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

, Spain (1999) *Six houses,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

, Netherlands (2000) *

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

City Hall extension, Netherlands (1996–2000) *Extension of the Music School,

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, Germany (1997–2000) *Set design for the opera "Don Quijote", Liceu Theatre, Barcelona, Spain (2000) *Hafen City public spaces in Hamburg, Germany (2002) * Parc de Diagonal Mar, Barcelona, Spain (1997–2002) *Vigo University Campus, Vigo, Spain (2003) *Santa Caterina Market, Barcelona, Spain (1996–2005) *Principal Building University Campus at Vigo (2006) *

(1999–2006) *Palafolls Public Library, Palafolls, Spain (2007) *Acoustic panels for Gran Via traffic way renovation in Barcelona (2007) *Social housing in

Figueres Figueres (; ) is the capital city of Alt Empordà county, in the Girona region, Catalonia, Spain. The town is the birthplace of artist Salvador Dalí, and houses the Dalí Theatre and Museum, a large museum designed by Dalí himself which att ...

, Catalonia, Spain (2007) *Scenery for Merce Cunningham Dance Company (2009) *Spanish Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010 (RIBA Best International Building 2011 Award.) *Plaza Ricard Viñes, Lleida, Spain (2010) *Fudan University Business School in Shanghai, China. *Clichy-Montfermeil metro station in Paris, France (2014) *Office towers in Taichung, Taiwan (2019) *The Church and Parish Complex San Giacomo Apóstolo in Ferrara (2022), awarded the Dedalo Minosse International Prize. *

Centro Direzionale station Centro Direzionale is a Naples Metro station on line 1, adjacent and connected through an underground passage to the station of the Circumvesuviana railway. History The construction site was inaugurated on 2 August 2014. It opened on 1 Apri ...

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

, Italy (2025)

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

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 Huesca (; ) is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Aragon between 1096 and 1118. It is also the capital of the Spanish Huesca (province), ...

Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and ; ) is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces of Spain, ...

, (Spain) 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 AwardBenedetta Tagliabue To Receive 2013 Riba Jencks Award
Retrieved 8 March 2015 *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 The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture is an international architecture founded in 2006 by architect and scholar Jana Revedin. Description Each year, the award honors five architects who "contribute to a more equitable and sustainable d ...

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. (Edición T6 Ediciones 2006, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura. Universidad de Navarra,

Pamplona Pamplona (; ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Navarre, Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. Lying at near above sea level, the city (and the wider Cuenca de Pamplona) is located on the flood pl ...

Navarre Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...

, Spain). *2007 Benedetta Tagliabue "Eating the City" Workshop Printemps 2007. ESA Productions (École Spéciale d’Architecture Paris). *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. (Salvat + EMBT MirallesTagliabue, Barcelona, España 2004) *2003 Loft /

teNeues teNeues (pronounced "teh-noy-es") is a publishing company founded by Dr. Heinz teNeues in Krefeld, Germany, in 1931. It is a third-generation family firm and one of the leading book publishers in the areas of photography, design, lifestyle, and ...

, 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 *

External links

Interview with architect Benedetta Tagliabue of EMBT

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tagliabue, Benedetta 1963 births Architects from Milan Living people Italian women architects Academic staff of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia