Ten Architects to be Thankful For #10 - Enric Miralles

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'd like to start a series of posts that remind us to give thanks for some of the great predecessors that came before us. I said in another post that no architect is an island. In addition to depending on each other, we also depend on past inspiration to develop present and future designs. Past architects have given us a foundation with which to build. So we start with a great inspiration to me, Enric Miralles.

Miralles is an example to me of relentlessness. If you look at his several designs, he was very focused. The above project, Santa Caterina Market, is known by most architects. I would say, however, that its predecessor is less well known. It resides in the same city and was a prominent development for the Olympics held in Barcelona. This structure overlooks a soccer field and was once part of the archery range for the 1992 Olympic games. While it is in a very different context than Santa Caterina, you can see the evolution of a similar idea between the two works.

One of the ways Miralles is most influential to me is in his ability to bring drawing elements so clearly into his architecture. Below are some examples of his works that seem to be living drawings. The lines are forming the space in much the same way they are drawn, but bring on a new life in built form. A very interesting and unique reminder to architects that those lines live on beyond the paper. Similarly, while Enric Miralles was taken too soon from us, his work lives on and inspires us.