Famed Spanish architect, educator, critic, and theoretician Rafael Moneo is the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. His illustrious career is comprised of several projects like the transformation of the Villahermosa Palace into the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Kursaal Auditorium, the Los Angeles Cathedral, and his involvement in the Giudecca housing project of 1983. Hashim Sarkis, 2021 curator of the 17th Biennale Architettura, shares, "Rafael Moneo is one of the most transformative architects of his generation."

After graduating from the Escuela Técnica Superior of Madrid in 1961 Moneo soon worked for architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza from 1958-61 and Jørn Utzon from 1961-62. He was awarded a fellowship at the Spanish Academy in Rome and soon opened his own office in Madrid while teaching at the Escuela Técnica Superior.

Moneo's contributions within professional practice are matched by his commitment to architectural academia as an educator. He was the former Chairman of the Architecture Department at Harvard GSD until 1990 and then named the Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at the GSD in 1991. He continues to lecture at the institution as Professor Emeritus. 

His career is also not shy of other awards and accolades. In 1996 Moneo was awarded the Pritzker Prize, and in 2003 he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He is also the recipient of the Prince of Asturias Prize in the Arts in 2013, the 2017 Praemium Imperiale Award winner, and elected a member of the Royal Academy of Fine arts in Spain in 1997. 

La Biennale Di Venezia expresses, "throughout his long career, Moneo has maintained a poetic prowess, reminding us of the powers of architectural form to express, shape but also to endure. He has also been tenaciously committed to architecture as an act of building."

On May 22, Moneo will be recognized during the awards ceremony and inauguration of the Biennal Architettura 2021. It will be a joint ceremony to honor the Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in memoriam to the multi-talented architect Lina Bo Bardi.