Joan Busquets is the First Martin Bucksbaum Professor in Practice of Urban Planning and Design at the GSD. Prior to joining the GSD faculty, Busquets was Chair-Professor of Town Planning and Urban Design in the School of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Barcelona from 1979 until 2002. Busquets received his degree in architecture (1969) and his doctoral degree (1975) by the Architecture School of Barcelona ETSAB – UPC. He has participated as a visiting professor in London, Urbino, Rotterdam, Rome, Lausanne, and Geneva, as well as on numerous juries for international competitions.

Professionally based in Barcelona since the 1980s, his firm BAU – B. Arquitectura i Urbanisme SLP was founded in 1992 and has designed and executed urban and architectural projects in Europe. His firm BLAU – B. Landscape Arquitectura y Urbanismo SL was founded in 2008 has designed and executed few large-scale projects in Latin America and China.

A world-renowned urban planner, urban designer, and architect, Busquets served as Head of Urban Planning for the Barcelona City Council during the formative years, from 1983 to 1989, and in the preparations for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, including the New Downtowns program for the City and the improvement process for existing neighborhoods. In 1969, he was a founding member of the Laboratorio de Urbanismo of Barcelona (LUB) and undertook a long-term study of squatter settlements in Barcelona and other Southern European cities as his PhD, for which he received the Spanish National Award for Town Planning in 1981, winning the award again in 1985 for his masterplan for Lerida’s old town. His urban rehabilitation strategy for Toledo, in Spain, and the publication Toledo y su futuro was recognized as Gubbio European Prize by ANCSA in 2000.

Awarded in 2011 with the International Erasmus prize (The Netherlands); in 2012 with Grand Prix Spécial de l’Urbanisme, Paris (France) and the Catalonian National prize for Architecture and Open Space. Elected Full Member of the Académie d’Architecture de France in 2016. In 2021 won the Patrick Abercrombie Prize of UIA.

Busquets has participated in strategic urban planning and design — most involving public-private partnerships — for the cities of Den Haag, Lisbon, Marseille, Rotterdam, Singapore, Sao Paulo and Barcelona Metropolis. His Team had completed projects for the modern center of Trento, and Alghero in Italy; the transformation of Vilanova, harbor front in Coruña, and for the Maquinista housing development of Barcelona, in Spain. Also, the Civic Center for Nesselande in Rotterdam, the Railway transformation in Delft, and the Housing renewal in Western Amsterdam, in The Netherlands. The city center in Viseu and the Chiado block, downtown Lisbon in Portugal. The transformation of the outskirts of Rouen, the retrofitting of old town of Toulouse and new Ecoquartier in Le Grau du Roi in France.

See projects at www.bau-barcelona.com