Benedetta Tagliabue was born in Milan and graduated from the University of Venice in 1989. In 1991 she joined Enric Miralles' studio where she eventually became a partner. Her work with Miralles, whom she married, includes a number of high profile buildings and projects in Barcelona: Parque Diagonal Mar (1997-2002), Head Office Gas Natural (1999-2006) and the Market and quarter Santa Caterina (1996-2005), as well as projects across Europe, including the School of Music in Hamburg (1997-2000) and the City Hall in Utrecht (1996-2000).

In 1998, the partnership won the competition to design the new Scottish Parliament building and despite Miralles' premature death in 2000, Tagliabue took leadership of the team as joint project director and the Parliament was successfully completed in 2004, winning several awards.

More recently, she won the competition for the new design of Hafencity Harbor in Hamburg, Germany, for a subway train station in Naples and for the Arcelor pavilion in Luxembourg among others.

Today under the direction of Benedetta Tagliabue the Miralles-Tagliabue-EMBT studio works with architectural projects, open spaces, urbanism, rehabilitation and exhibitions, trying to conserve the spirit of the Spanish and Italian artisan architectural studio tradition which aim is not specialization.

Their architectural philosophy is dedicating special attention to context.

She received the Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Napier University (2004), The RIBA Stirling Prize 2005, the Centenary Medal from Edinburgh Architectural Association and the 2005 Spanish National Architecture Prize 'Manuel de la Dehesa', for the Scottish Parliament building.

This lecture has been selected as the 2012 John Dinkeloo Memorial Lecture. This memorial lecture was established to recognize John Dinkeloo's extraordinary contributions to architecture, to honor his distinguished professional work and to pay tribute to this highly respected alumnus of the Architecture Program at the University of Michigan.