Manuel Sánchez Arcas
(Madrid, 1897 - Berlín, 1970)

Manuel Sánchez Arcas graduated from the School of Architecture in Madrid in 1921. He did postgraduate studies in London and worked in Secundino Zuazo’s studio after he returned to Madrid. He was member of the editorial board of the periodical Arquitectura, published by the Sociedad Central de Arquitectos. In 1925, he opened his own studio and worked with José Arnal Rojas in the headquarters of the Tabacalera Co. in Madrid, and the Hospital Español de México (1930). He worked for the Technical Office of the University of Madrid, and built the Central Administration Pavilion, the Power Plant, and the Hospital Clínico. He designed and built with Luis Lacasa and Solana the Provincial Hospital of Toledo (1931). The same year, he signed the manifesto of the Iberian Artists Society.

In 1933, he entered a competition, in collaboration with members of GATEPAC José Manuel Aizpurúa, Joaquín Labayen, and Eduardo Lagarde, for the construction of a hospital in San Sebastian. In 1934, he designed and built the Food Market of Algeciras with the engineer Eduardo Torroja, a close associate during those years. Both men founded the Instituto Técnico de la Construcción y Edificación (Technical Institute of Construction and Building), and the periodical Hormigón y Acero.  Sánchez Arcas built several buildings with his partner Lacasa for the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (JAE), such as the National Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ventorrillo Biological Alpine Station in the Sierra de Guadarrama, some projects for the National Museum of Natural Science, the Center for Historical Studies, and the headquarters of the JAE on the Poplar Hill.

He and Lacasa were members the Communist Party, and during the Civil War Sánchez Arcas held relevant positions in the Government of the Second Republic. After the war, he was purged by Franco’s régime and went into exile in Russia and Poland. He served as ambassador of the Government of the Spanish Republic in Exile and worked in the reconstruction of Warsaw. He later moved to Berlin in the German Democratic Republic, where he published the books, Form und Bauweise der Schalen (1961, and Stadt und Verkehr (1968).