The Caja Granada, or cube of light, is a well-known project by Alberto Campo Baeza, who has been exhibited and published numerous times and received many awards. When Caja Granada was finished, the architect was commissioned to design the MA, or Museum of Memory of Andalucia, in the adjacent lot, and he decided to create the new building in close dialogue with the first one, trying to build a piece of the city. He is convinced that the contemporary city is a fabric that needs to be redone continuously, rather than a collage of different works built in isolation to each other. Caja Granada was the result of a public competition won in 1992 and completed in 2001. The commission for MA was given in 2004 and the project was completed in 2009.

• Book Series Master Buildings
  
• Photography by Nic Lehoux
• Edited by Oscar Riera Ojeda

Contributors Biographies

Alberto Campo Baeza is an architect (Escuela de Arquitectura de Madrid). He wrote his doctoral thesis with Javier Carvajal and was a professor at the ETSAM for more than twenty years. He has taught at the ETH in Zurich; EPFL in Lausanne; the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; the BAUHAUS in Weimar; Kansas State University and other institutions in Dublin, Naples, Virginia and Copenhagen. He spent a year as a research fellow at Columbia University in New York (2001). He has published two collections of writing: “La idea construída” and “Pensar con las manos”. He has also received many awards including the Torroja for his Caja Granada building, and The Buenos Aires Biennial 2009 for his Nursery for Benetton in Venice and his MA Museum in Granada. Recently, the American Academy of Arts and Letters nominated Alberto Campo Baeza for the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize of 2010. His work has been exhibited at the Crown Hall by Mies at Chicago’s IIT; the Palladio Basilica in Vicenza; the Urban Center in New York; the Saint Irene Church in Istanbul; and the MA Gallery of Toto in Tokyo. In 2010 his work was exhibited at the MAXXI Museum and in San Pietro in Montorio, both in Rome. He believes in Architecture as a BUILT IDEA, and that the principle components of Architecture are GRAVITY, which builds SPACE, and LIGHT, which builds TIME.

Nic Lehoux is a Canadian architectural photographer who works with architects that push the boundaries of design of the built environment. Nic is regularly commissioned to document significant buildings around the world with his unique eye, lighting and sense of composition. His images are frequently published in the international architectural press. His professional work puts a particular emphasis on incorporating people within tightly-composed architectural photographs. Nic is influenced by the concept of the “decisive moment” – popularized by Henry Cartier-Bresson – which he adapts to the rigors of architectural photography. His images therefore serve as a reflection on the interaction of people with the built environment.