On Tuesday, 5 March 2013, the architect, professor and critic Arturo Franco gave a lecture titled «Moods» as part of the ESARQ Forum lecture series, whose theme this year is «Atmospheres. The Sense of Things». During the session, Franco presented some of the work he has carried out over the last few years, including his construction projects at the Matadero Madrid arts centre.
In his lecture, Franco gave an overview of his most recent projects, which reflect a dynamic, recurring ideology, a way of being, of looking and also of working. Prominent among the examples he talked about were the three projects he worked on between 2006 and 2012 at the Matadero Madrid arts centre, a former slaughterhouse. Franco told the audience that he had conceived the lecture as a journey and described it as “a voyage through time, moving around without apparent order, visiting completely different places, supposedly different situations, overlapping thoughts, works”.
Arturo Franco completed his architecture degree at the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM), after which he began to combine architecture criticism, teaching, research and professional practice with the same level of enthusiasm. He has been the architecture critic for the ABC newspaper for 10 years and the editor of the magazine of the Official Association of Architects of Madrid since 2008. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Architectural Composition at the ETSAM and a visiting professor of projects at the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca. He was acknowledged to be one of the most influential young Spanish architects by the El País newspaper, the Caja de Arquitectos Foundation, the Spanish Ministry of Development and the magazines Architectural Digest and 2G. His work has earned him prizes from Madrid City Council, the Official Association of Architects, the association Fostering Art and Design (FAD), the Saloni Awards and the Swiss Architecture Awards.
