Eva Franch i Gilabert
Eva Franch i Gilabert (Delta de l’Ebre 1978) is an architect, curator, and educator based between Barcelona, Prague, and New York. Franch has been the director of the Architectural Association in London and the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. She curated the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2014 with the OfficeUS project, which included three publications: Manual, Atlas, and Agenda (Lars Muller). Franch is a professor at UMPRUM, the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague, and a visiting professor at Princeton University and Cooper Union in the United States. Franch is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Model. Barcelona Architectures Festival, founded by the Barcelona City Council and the College of Architects of Catalonia.
With a focus on curatorial activism and planetary pedagogies and practices, her work articulates global desires from local perspectives by generating new stories and potential futures. Franch has given lectures worldwide and curated international projects such as "Letters to the Mayor" with editions in over 20 cities, including Barcelona, Mexico, Buenos Aires, Taipei, Berlin, and New York. She has curated critical and transgressive projects such as Picasso: Untitled at La Casa Encendida in Madrid or The Architects, a video piece that is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, produced for the project OfficeUS. Franch has received recognition from the American Institute of Architects in New York for her contribution to the field in 2018 and the Alumni Award from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 2019. She was honored by the New York Times/T Magazine Spain as Architect of the Year in 2019, recognized as one of the most influential individuals in London by the Evening Standard in 2018, and named one of the "New Change Makers" in 2020.
