Articles by David Cohn

The design for a convention center in central Spain's historic city of Toledo presented Rafael Moneo with a fascinating problem: how to insert a modern, 400,000-square-foot building into a city that has scarcely changed since El Greco painted it in the 16th century.

With his design for the Atrium House, 36-year-old architect Fran Silvestre takes a fresh look at 20th-century Modernist formulas, from the courtyard houses of Mies van der Rohe of the 1920s and '30s to the Case Study Houses in Los Angeles of the 1950s and '60s.

Behind the eye-catching design of the 969,000-square-foot Rey Juan Carlos Hospital in the Madrid suburb of M'stoles, Spanish architect Rafael de La-Hoz has created a therapeutic atmosphere, organizing the building around accessible atria that help orient patients and immerse them in a protective, inward-looking environment.

When approaching a design problem, Madrid-based architects Fernando Rodr'guez and Pablo Oriol of the firm FRPO try to find a method of attack rather than jumping right in with a solution.

If there is any corner of the world less in need of a new architectural icon, it's Menton, a lovely seaside hill town situated 2.5 miles from Italy on the French Riviera.