BIOGRAPHY
Mr Sala is an architect (RIBA), with over 40 years of experience in the architectural profession as a Project Architect, with a multifaceted education as an architectural illustrator, researcher and university lecturer.
In the last two decades, architectural photography emerged as a new profession; his dual background in architecture and vast experience in editorial photography shaped a distinctive visual approach to architectural photography, documentary, commercial and editorial. He is the founder of architecture+photography; his architecture photographs are held in the RIBA Library Collection, where he currently collaborates.
For nearly forty years, Alejandro Sala has been a collaborator with several architecture firms, as a senior project designer, associate, and principal. Instrumental in shaping a wide range of projects as a principal designer, manager, and advisor. Throughout the architecture profession, his work has mainly focused on the conceptual aspect of design conception and development. It has been instrumental in the fulfilment of a variety of project typologies. His expertise expands from master plan studies, cultural, commercial, and adaptive reuse. In recent years, there has been a focus on private residential in Australia, beyond documentary architecture photography.
He has embraced a vast number of roles in urban design, residential, and commercial projects. His notable contributions to projects span from the conceptual aspects of design and development to cultivating strong relationships with clients.
Notable projects throughout include: Private House in Adelaide Hills, Yokohama Port Terminal and several typologies of buildings in Italy, including The Big Pavilion Town Market, IFFIS Bank, Hq. Bozen New Industrial Fair, Porto Marguera Urban Plan area, Cook Industrial Riconversion, Docks Tower, Motor City Masterplan, Six Module for a New Conception of Home Buildings.
His early collaborations with many architecture firms were instrumental in the fulfilment of large projects, among them: Gae Aulenti (Milan), Mount Zion Hotel (Israel), Suter+Suter architects, New Daimler Benz factory in Stuttgart -New Facade-, Düsseldorf Bank Germany, second place at architectural competition, Rino Tami Recreation Lugano Waterfront space, Baudizone Lestartd Varas Buenos Aires, Magdalani Towers Buenos Aires, Lazzari Architects, expansion of Ex Stables" annexed to Villa Furstemberg - IFIS Bank, Italy. He worked at the firm from 2005 to 2009. Mr Sala worked at Moscardi architects in Italy as a project leader, responsible for the development of the Urban Plan at Area Macevi in Mogliano Veneto, Italy, and the New Urban Plan for Piazza XXVII October in Mestre, as well as the Housing Complex Santa Bertilla in Spinea. Moscardi & Architects won the Luigi Piccinato Award for Urban Planning and Regional Planning in 2010, and received an honourable mention at several architecture competitions.
In addition to his profession as an architect, he had a visual imprinting, fundamental to his training, which was then joined by a lively passion for drawing and architectural illustrations and influenced by Helmut Iacobby, whom he met in 1981.
Mr. Sala's figurative language was the outcome of a deeply personal memory path that starts from a heartfelt adherence to drawing and optical representation, and the use of perspective to rebuild the final image of a building or a townscape. Mr. Sala dedicated many years to studying the art of architectural materials representation and the use of colour in architecture. His expertise has led the past two decades in his documentary photography work.
Mr Sala was a pioneer in architectural illustrations in his youth and was the founder of SA. Delineation in the 90s. Worked for several architectural firms, construction companies, and developers, becoming an immediate success, which has made his activity a much-imitated studio for its ability to hand-draw buildings to illustrate and represent the architecture.
From the perspectives of "Le Plaza" in Basilea onward, Alex's skilful illustrations of architecture helped propel architecture firms onto the international architecture scene, publishing his drawings before the building was built. Along with Le Plaza's and Place Marie Office Building by M.Pei and Associates, Air Italia Group, Adriatica Navigation Company, and Developers and Construction Companies. Alex's drawings contributed to a distinctive repertoire of cutting-edge drawing techniques and material techniques representation across his sketches and illustrations for many architectural firms during the 1970s and 1990s.
EDUCATION
Mr. Sala received his first education in architecture at the Architecture University of Buenos Aires (Belgrano University) from 1976 to 1979. He studied visual arts, photography and communication on a scholarship, awarded by the Italian Foreign Ministry in Urbino, 1979-1980, Italy, at ISIA Istituto Statale di Urbino.
He received a degree in Architecture at Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia in 1989 with a thesis, A New Plan for Buenos Aires, with highest honours for excellence in design. In 1990, this work won an honourable mention in the composition "Revisitation of Waterfronts by the International Federation for Housing and Planning in Holland. He attended the PH.D Doctoral program at International Architecture Research, "Villar d'Honecourt 20023-2004. He attends the Ecole d'Architecture in Paris, Belville, Roma 3 and Iuav, Venice.
He has alternated architecture design with teaching and research. Has carried out various research projects on Le Corbusier as a fellow researcher at the Design Faculty in Venice, directed by Prof Arch. Mauro Lena (IUAV).Venice. Published together with Prof. LenaLe Corbusier's composition on the modern house Villa Stein at Garches.
He has collaborated in the thesis laboratories guided by Aldo Rossi, the science department of architecture, Cla SA. He was a visiting professor at Hochschule für Architektur und Bauwesen Weimar, at Post-graduate courses at UBA University of Architecture and Urban Studies, Buenos Aires. His academic work was shortlisted to compete for an assistant position in architectural design at the Richard Meier Chair at Cornell University's Faculty of Architecture, U.S.
Studied over James Stirling, who exercised a significant influence, particularly on the academic project for the New Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice. The influence of these studies, a few years later, followed a robust period of conception and design of numerous large projects in Italy, such as the H.q Industrial Fair in Bozen and the Public Library in Matelago (Italy).
He was certified to practice architecture in 1991, ten years after the certification, in compliance with CEE guidelines 85/834 for exercising the profession in CEE countries and with the Italian Ministry of Education and Research. He was an active member, a registered architect in Italy, of the Venice Order of Architects. Is a member of the Royal British Institute of Architects (RIBA).
AS ARCHITECTURE PHOTOGRAPHY