Miralles Tagliabue

Enric Miralles Moya (°25 February 1955 – 3 July 2000) was a Spanish architect. He graduated from the School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in 1978. After establishing his reputation with a number of collaborations with his first wife Carme Pinós, the couple separated in 1991. He later married fellow architect Benedetta Tagliabue, and the two practiced together as EMBT Architects. Miralles’ magnum opus and his largest project, the new Scottish Parliament Building was unfinished at the time of his death.

In 1978, he completed his examinations at the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura (ETSAB) in Barcelona. From 1973 to 1978 he worked in the architect’s office of Albert Viaplana and Helio Piñón. In 1984 after several architectural competition awards, he formed his own office in Barcelona with his first wife Carme Pinós, which they led together until 1991. Within the rising Spanish architecture scene of the late 1980s following the death of Francisco Franco, their unusual buildings attracted international attention. As a result, they received numerous commissions from Spain and overseas. After their separation, Miralles and Pinós continued to work in separate offices.

In 1993 Enric Miralles formed a new practice with his second wife, the Italian architect Benedetta Tagliabue, under the name “EMBT Architects”. She resumed the practice under his name after his death. The most important projects; the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh and the multistoried building for the Spanish gas company Gas Natural in Barcelona, were only finished after his death. Enric Miralles died at the age of 45 as the result of a brain tumor.

Enric Miralles was an active teacher at numerous universities. In 1985, he became a professor at the ETSAB in Barcelona. During 1990 he took over the conceptional design chair at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. In 1993, he received an invitation from Harvard University to occupy the Kenzo Tange chair. He taught as a guest lecturer at Columbia University in New York, Princeton University in New Jersey, the Architectural Association in London, the Berlage Instituut in Rotterdam, the Mackintosh School of Architecture in Glasgow and the Universities of Buenos Aires and Mexico City.