Idearch is an architecture studio founded in Madrid in 2009 by Syra Abella and Joaquín Mosquera. Since then it has developed projects across multiple scales and programmes — housing, retail, offices, public spaces — guided by a principle that runs through every commission: to give each built work its own singularity, from simplicity and honesty, attending to the essential values of architecture. Its clients include both private entities and public institutions.
The studio’s trajectory has received national and international recognition. The COAM 2019 Award for new construction, for the Casa-Estudio for an artist in Hoyo de Manzanares, was followed by selections in the Bigmat International Architecture Award 2021, the FAD Awards for Architecture and Interior Design 2021 and the Awards of the Council of Architects of Spain 2022. Competition work has also accumulated numerous prizes and mentions — among them first prize in the competition for the new headquarters of the COEM and a finalist position in the competition for the Central Library of Helsinki, from among 550 proposals. Their work has been published in outlets such as Tectónica, AV, ConArquitectura, Arquitectura Viva, Metalocus and Archello.
Abella and Mosquera regard practice and theory as inseparable parts of the same work. Both have taught at the ETSAM and at the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, have published in specialist journals and books, and take part in university research groups. That dual presence — in the project and in reflection on it — is a constitutive part of the studio’s identity.
Joaquín Mosquera
Joaquín Mosquera holds a doctorate in architecture from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and is a professor of Architectural Design at the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria. Before founding idearch, he was part of the team at Dominique Perrault Architecture, where he served as architect in charge of works on the Caja Mágica Olympic Tennis Centre in Madrid — a large-scale project of singular importance for the city.
Awarded a postgraduate grant by the Fundación Caja Madrid to study at Columbia University in New York, he completed the Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design and the Master in Advanced Architectural Research, rounding out that period with a sustained interest in photography alongside photographers of recognised standing. Back in Madrid, he co-founded idearch with Syra Abella in 2009. His work within the studio spans projects of different scales and typologies, with competition prizes and publications in numerous specialist media. Teaching and research are, for him, natural dimensions of architectural practice.
Syra Abella
Syra Abella graduated in architecture from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid and went on to develop her professional career over eight years at Espegel-Fisac Arquitectos, where she worked as architect in charge of works and projects. That extended and formative period gave her a thorough command of built practice in the field of contemporary architecture and urban planning.
In parallel, she deepened her interests in architectural visualisation and digital representation during a two-year stay in New York — disciplines she incorporated as fundamental tools in her way of working. In 2009 she co-founded idearch with Joaquín Mosquera, a studio from which she has developed architecture and interior design projects across a wide range of scales and programmes, recognised with national and international awards and published across a broad spectrum of specialist media.