Cifuentes will give a lecture at the IE School of Architecture on “GLOCAL: acting global, acting local”

Viernes/ Friday. 12/02/2010 13.00 h. Construir en el lugar. Francisco Cifuentes, Palma de Mallorca ( Profesor Asociado de Proyectos y Dibujo, EAR-URV, Reus;  Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture, EAR-URV, Reus).

Francisco Cifuentes explains how those places in which only vernacular knowledge dictates how to build lead the architect back to the learning process. Because it is in tradition, in the secular cultural model, in everything rooted that is transmitted over generations, where the architect truly learns his/her craft. Cifuentes was born in Palma de Mallorca and studied in Barcelona. He develops the broadest part of his professional activity in the island, but his commitment to teaching and research make him travel mainland constantly. He studies the anonymous constructions and the historical monuments of Mallorca with the same attention and depth; he experiments and discovers new possibilities of construction with low-tech materials, as thermo clay blocks or cement beam filler blocks.

He has been Finalist of the FAD 2007 Prize and has been awarded the First Architecture Prize of Mallorca 2004-2005-2006 (COAIB) for the Bunyola single family house. Cifuentes was selected for the Young Spanish Architects-JAE Exhibition 2008, he was the First Prize of Opinion and Honorable Mention for his communication in the Forum Arquia/Próxima 2008, organized by the Caja de Arquitectos. He is currently developing his doctoral research on the “Lonja of Guillem Sagrera” in Palma de Mallorca.