Selgascano Arquitectos

The architect duo José Selgas and Lucía Cano founded the SelgasCano studio in 1998 in Madrid, Spain. Both born in the Spanish capital in 1965, they studied at the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid, from which they graduated in 1992. Before establishing the SelgasCano firm, José Selgas worked with Francesco Venecia in Naples, winning the Rome Prize of the Spanish Fine Arts Academy in 1997 and 1998. Lucìa Cano, for her part, worked with celebrated Spanish architect Julio Cano Lasso and was a member of his studio until 2003. The study of the processes of construction is at the heart of the studio’s work. SelgasCano endeavours to avoid the use of overly strict representations and creative principles in their constructions. The studio focuses on the pursuit of beauty that is comprehensible for all. SelgasCano currently collaborates with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to integrate technologies developed for other domains, and rarely applied to architecture, into its projects. SelgasCano has won numerous private and public commissions, among them the Silicon House in Madrid (2007), the Office in the Woods in Madrid (2009), the El 'B' Cartagena Auditorium and Congress Centre in Murcia (2011), and the Mérida Factory in Mérida (2011). In 2015, the 9 architects performed the restoration of Second Home in London. They are currently working on the Plasencia Convention Centre and auditorium in Cáceres, the Pip House in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles, the renovation of Texas Square in Oranjestad on the island of Aruba, and the La Canaria house in Los Angeles. SelgasCano’s work has also been featured in exhibitions in prestigious venues worldwide, in particular at MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the GA Gallery and the MOT (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Tokyo, the Design Museum in London, the Academy of the Arts in Berlin, the Tin Sheds Gallery in Sydney, and MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Boston. In 2010, the architects were selected for the Venice Biennale of architecture, curated by the studio SANAA. In 2012, SelgasCano were again featured at the Spanish Pavilion during the Venice Biennale of architecture within the collective exhibition SpainLab. In 2013, the duo won the Kunstpreis prize awarded by the Academy of the Arts in Berlin. The same year, they were named "Architects of the Year" by the German Design Council. In 2015, they designed the pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery. The Pavillon Martell de SelgasCano is their first project in France