Fernando Menis
Architecture practice funded in 2004 by Fernando Menis, after he decided to start a new stage, independent of his former partners, with whom he had been established as an architect, during a long and successful history of 30 years. Menis Arquitectos stands as a practice of high-quality architecture, far from the standards, strong craft oriented, working with a method, closely linked to the personal career of the architect founder. This method is based on a passion for manual labor that remains intact from his childhood. The work with models involves hands, charged with emotion, to approach the project: a continuous process of addition and removal that sets according to program needs, constructive rationality and economic viability. There is a deep interest at Menis, for the reuse of natural and environmental resources, be those cultural or historical, as the means of each project and each site. Common sense in dealing with raw materials and their true potential in the context where inserted is the framework in which reason and emotion are combined, the two categories present in the work of the office and of the personal evolution of the architect.
Fernando Menis (1951, Santa Cruz de Tenerife)
Architect, PhD in Architecture, Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), the European University of Canarias (UEC) and Chairman of the Laboratory for Innovation in Architecture, Design and Advanced Tourism of Tenerife he is constantly invited to seat as a Jury, to conduct workshops or as a Guest Lecturer at Harvard, Columbia NY, ESA Paris, TU Berlin Universities, Akbild Wien Academy and at Architecture Congresses in Switzerland, Australia, India, Singapore, Taiwan, China, South Africa, Croatia, Italy, Poland, Colombia, Mexico .
Trained in architecture in Barcelona, at the beginning of the '80s, he comes back to Tenerife where he co-founds an architecture firm with two other partners and together they work until 2004. Later, in 2005, he starts a solitary path funding two new architectural offices – Menis Arquitectos and Fernando Menis – with headquarters in Tenerife and Valencia.
Menis is the author and co-author of a large number of projects. Some of the already-built projects are: CKK “Jordanki” in Torun, Poland (2015), Bürchen Public Square, Switzerland (2015), Insular Athletics Stadium (2007), Magma Art & Congress (2005), Swimming pool on Spree River, Berlin (2004) and Presidency of the Canary Islands Government Building (1999). Some of the on-going projects are: Urban and Seaside Planning in Boa Vista – Santa Mónica and Chave (Cape Verde), Three Villas in Lijiang, China, Performing Arts Centre in Fuerteventura, Agora Garden Tower and Aurum House in Taiwan, the Holy Redeemer Church in Tenerife, and the Bürchen Mystik Hotel in Switzerland.
The quality of his architecture production has been recognized worldwide with prestigious awards among which: Iconic Award for Public Building (DE, 2016); Best Concrete Building at WAN Awards (UK, 2016); Gold Award to the Best Public Building at Taipei Intl. Design Awards (CN, 2016); Special Award to Accessibility at Cemex Awards (MX, 2016); Best Cultural Building, awarded by the Polish Architects Association (PL, 2015); First Prize at World Architecture Festival 2012 (WAF'12) in “New & Old” category and the Special Director’s Award at the same edition (SG, 2012); the Ambuja Cement Foundation Award in Architectural Innovation for “The Holy Redeemer Church” (ID, 2012); Best Future Cultural Project Award at WAF (SG, 2010); Spanish National Architecture and Decoration Award (ES, 2000); nine times he won the Canary Islands Architecture Award and he was several times a finalist at the Architecture and Design Awards - (FAD) and at the Spanish Architecture Biennale. In 2016, Fernando Menis was awarded the Taburiente Award, given annually by the newspaper Diario de Avisos to the most remarkable Spanish persons in different cultural and professional fields.
Menis was invited to exhibit at several editions of the Architecture Venice Biennale, within national Pavilions or within the Projects section. He was invited to partake at the seminal exhibition "On-Site" held at the MoMA NY (2006) and have a solo show at the legendary architecture gallery Aedes in Berlin (2006). His project "The Holy Redeemer Church in La Laguna" has been included in the permanent collection of the MoMA New York.
