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 Shared Structures, Private Space (Actar 2020), Architecture in Mexico 1900-2010 (Arquine, 2013), Mi casa, tu ciudad (Puente Editores 2021) and Vivienda Colectiva en México (Gustavo Gili, 2017). Her work has been exhibited at The Royal Academy of Arts in London, the ifa-Gallery in Stuttgart and the Venice Biennale, among other institutions. She is currently Visiting Professor at Harvard University GSD (Fall 2022) and has been Visiting Faculty member at Princeton School of Architecture (Fall 2021) as well as the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor of Architectural Design at Yale School of Architecture (Fall 2019), and a guest speaker at MIT, the Architectural Association in London, Columbia University in New York and Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Canales has published more than 100 essays in specialized magazines such as AA Files, El Croquis, Perspecta, Baumeister, Bawelt, Arquitectura Viva and Domus.
She has been awarded with the Research Graham Foundation Grant 2022, the Fundación Arte Contemporáneo Jumex grant, the Career Award and the Best Young Architect Award in Mexico (2014, Colegio de Arquitectos de México), and the fellowship of the National System of Creators in Mexico (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2012). She has received The Masterprize Award, WAN Awards, The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture Award, the IIDA Design Award, and the Best of Design Awards by the Architects Newspaper. Fernanda was shortlisted for the Dorfsman Award by the Royal Academy of Arts in London (2019), the Swiss Architectural Award (2018), and the Iakov Chernikov International Architecture Award (2015).