On November 8, at four o'clock in the afternoon, it was announced that the jury appointed for the Gold Medal of Architecture 2012 has unanimously decided to award this recognition to the architect Javier Carvajal Ferrer. This award is the highest award awarded by the committee Superior de los Colegios de Arquitectos de España to recognize those individuals and institutions that have stood out especially in the practice of the profession, the promotion and knowledge dissemination of architecture, and the defense and improvement of the image of the architect. The jury has especially valued his status as a master and reference letter within contemporary Spanish architecture, the quality of his built work and his great work in the field professor and academia.

Javier Carvajal was born in Barcelona, although he did his programs of study at School of Architecture in Madrid, where he obtained the award extraordinary end of degree program and won by civil service examination the stay in Rome as a pensioner of the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts. During those years he traveled all over Europe to see first-hand the panorama of architecture. In 1957 he was awarded the Academy's Rome award and the same year he won the Gold Medal at the XI Milan Triennial and founded the Spanish Society of Industrial design together with Carlos de Miguel and Luis Feduchi. In 1960 he won the Medal of Fine Arts in the Architecture section. That same year he was already in charge of Chair Projects at the School of Madrid, where he received his doctorate two years later. And in 1965 he won the Chair of projects by civil service examination , becoming the first "modern" Full Professor of the School of Madrid.

Of all the successes of those years, perhaps the most famous -especially outside our borders- was the pavilion he designed to represent Spain at the 1964-1965 World's Fair in New York. The pavilion received numerous awards, among them: the Gold Medal of the Fair, the First award of the high school National Architects of the United States, the Gold Medal of the association of Interior Decoration and the Diploma of Honor of the National Art Club, proclaiming itself as the best pavilion of the whole Fair.

A year later he built his own home and that of his in-laws in Somosaguas. Both houses won in 1968 the award Fritz Schumacher for the best European architecture, awarded by the University of Hannover "for having translated the rich Spanish architectural tradition into a contemporary language".

During the following decades he devoted himself more intensely to teaching and academic work in Madrid, Las Palmas, Barcelona and especially in Pamplona, where he traveled every week, showing an enormous spirit of sacrifice. He left a strong imprint on a whole generation of Spanish architects who feel indebted to his teachings and who yesterday were able to corroborate the national recognition of their teacher.

Just two years ago, at the end of October, a tribute was held at School of Architecture in Madrid - to which he was unable to attend attend due to his delicate state of health - by his colleagues, involving the Schools of Madrid, Pamplona, Barcelona and Las Palmas, as well as the respective Architects' Associations. Part of the leitmotiv of the event was that it would serve to make amends for her absence from the list of those awarded the Gold Medal of Architecture. Yesterday the figure of this architect, who was a true milestone in 20th century Spanish architecture, was reinstated, as was only right and proper. The School of the University of Navarra instituted in this act the award Javier Carvajal, which was awarded for the first time in May of this year to Kenneth Frampton, professor at Columbia University. It also published, on the occasion of the tribute, the book "La huella de un maestro" with photographs of his most outstanding work, from the file that the architect himself donated to this Navarrese institution.