Fernanda Canales is an architect based in Mexico City committed to design, urban planning and research. She holds a PhD in Architecture from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, an MA from the Universidad Politecnica de Cataunya in Barcelona and a BA from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. Canales has been distinguished with several international awards, such as the Emerging Voices Award from The Architectural League of New York. She was named one of the world’s “100+ Best Architecture Firms” by the architecture magazine DOMUS and was recognized by The New York Times as one of the 10 female figures changing the landscape of leadership in the world.
Fernanda is author of the books: My House, Your City: Privacy in a Shared World (Puente Editores, Barcelona, 2021), Shared Structures, Private Spaces (Actar, Barcelona, 2020), Collective Housing in Mexico: The Right to Architecture (Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2017), and Architecture in Mexico 1900–2010: The Construction of Modernity (Arquine, Mexico, 2013). Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the ifa Gallery in Stuttgart (2019), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2018), the Gallatin Gallery at NYU in New York (2018), the Venice Biennale (2021, 2014, 2012, and 2006), and the São Paulo Architecture Biennial (2011 and 2005) and the Rotterdam Architecture Biennial (2005). She is currently a visiting professor at Columbia University (GSAPP) and has been visiting professor at Harvard University GSD, Princeton School of Architecture (fall 2021), Yale School of Architecture (fall 2019) and The Architectural Association in London.
Her work and his more than 100 essays have been published in various specialized media such as AA Files, Perspecta, El Croquis, The Architectural Review, Baumeister, Bawelt, Casabella, Architectural Record, Letras Libres, Praxis, Arquitectura Viva, Wallpaper, Domus, Abitare and Arquine.
She has been awarded the Graham Foundation Grant 2022, the Jumex Contemporary Art Foundation grant, and the FONCA Young Creators grant in 2004. She is an Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and a member of the National System of Creators of CONACULTA. She also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Federation of Colleges of Architects of Mexico and the Young Architects in Mexico Award in 2012. She has served as a juror in international architectural competitions and was a Delegate and juror for the Ibero-American Architecture and Urbanism Biennial.