Fernanda Canales holds a PhD from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, Spain, and an MA from the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, Barcelona. Her work has been distinguished with several international awards, such as the Emerging Voices Award from The Architectural League of New York in 2018. She was a finalist for the Dorfsman Award awarded by the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and is author of the books Shared Strutures, Private Space (Actar 2019), Vivienda Colectiva en México (Gustavo Gili, 2017), and Architecture in Mexico 1900-2010 (Arquine, 2013). Her work has been widely exhibited, among other venues, at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, The Gallatin Gallery in New York and the Venice Biennale.
She is Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor of Architectural Design at Yale School of Architecture for the fall semester of the 2019-2020 academic year, and has been a guest speaker at the Architectural Association in London and at Columbia University in New York, among many other institutions. In 2017 she was shortlisted in the Firm of the Year Award by the American Architecture Prize, and in 2014 she received the Career Award and the Best Young Architect Award in Mexico (Colegio de Arquitectos de México, 2012). Fernanda has been nominated twice for the Iakov Chernikov International Architecture Award (2015, 2009), and her work has been exhibited in venues such as the ifa-galerie in Stuttgart (2019), The Royal Academy of Arts in London (2019), the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco (2018), the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2017), the Venice Biennale (2014, 2012, 2006), the Franz Mayer Museum (2006), Museum for Contemporary Art in UNAM (2012), the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City (2011), as well as the Sao Paulo Biennial (2011, 2005) and the Rotterdam Biennale in 2005. She received the fellowship of the National System of Creators (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2012-2015), and was awarded the Young Creator Program fellowship (FONCA, 2004).
Fernanda Canales has received several recognitions like Concrete WAN Awards, The International Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture Award, Building of the year by Archdaily, the IIDA Design Award, T&L Award, the Noldi Schreck Award and the Cemex Award. She is coauthor of 100x100 Arquitectos del Siglo XX en México (Arquine, 2017, 2011), O´Neil Ford Duograph 4 Series (The University of Texas at Austin, 2012), El primer multifamiliar moderno, Centro Urbano Presidente Alemán (ICA, 2017) and Espacios Culturales of Abraham Zabludovsky (2010). She has published more than 100 essays in specialized magazines such as Baumeister, Bawelt, El Croquis, Letras Libres, Praxis, Arquitectura Viva, Wallpaper, Domus, Abitare and Arquine. She has been part of the jury of important international architecture competitions and is an emerit member of the Academia Nacional de Arquitectura and of the editorial board of magazines Arquine and La Tempestad.