Benedetta Tagliabue (born 23 June 1963) is an Italian architect, who lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. With Enric Miralles, she co-founded the international studio EMBT Architects. She is the principal and director of EMBT Architects, and president of Fundació Enric Miralles.

Early life and education

Tagliabue was born in Milan in 1963. She started her architectural study at the Università Iuav di Venezia in 1981. In 1988, she began to collaborate professionally with the architectural firms Transbuilding and Agrest-Gandelsonas in New York. Tagliabue graduated from the Università Iuav di Venezia in 1989.

Career

In 1991, Tagliabue won first prize with her thesis in the "Biennal Joves de Barcelona". In 1992, before the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, she started a relationship with Enric Miralles (1955–2000).

EMBT career

In 1994, Tagliabue and Miralles formed the Barcelona-based architecture firm Miralles Tagliabue EMBT, later renamed Benedetta Tagliabue - EMBT. In 1995, the firm won the National Architecture Award of Spain for a boarding school in Morella. Miralles' most important projects, the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh and the multi-storied Gas Natural building in Barcelona, were finished by Tagliabue after his death in 2000, along with the remodelling of Barcelona's Santa Caterina market. She worked on the Spanish Pavilion completed for the 2010 Shanghai Expo. In 2022, Tagliabue's home featured in Apple TV's Home in season 2, where she detailed the construction and renovation of her and her late husband's Barcelona gothic villa.

Academic career

In 2004, Tagliabue received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Napier University and she is a member of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. Tagliabue teaches at the University of Architecture ETSAB (Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona) in Barcelona and lectures regularly in architectural forums.

Awards judge

Benedetta has been a juror in the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Princesa de Asturias de las Artes, Loewe Craft Prize, RIBA Jencks Awards, and the 2024 RIBA Stirling Prize.

Selected work

Awards

Publications