Laura Sánchez Carrasco

Architectural history and theory; twentieth-century architecture after World War II; postwar Spanish and American architecture and their exchanges; historiography of modern and contemporary architecture.

Laura Sánchez Carrasco is UPM Visiting Professor of Practice at UC Berkeley’s Department of Architecture for fall 2026, and permanent faculty at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, where she has taught since 2018. Her research and teaching focus on the history and theory of architecture after World War II, with particular attention to 20th-century American architecture, Spanish architecture, and the exchanges between the two, alongside a broader historiographic revision of modern and contemporary architecture. She has developed these lines of research through her participation in national and international projects since 2016, including Conexiones de la arquitectura española con las Américas: academia, profesión y difusión (1976–2006) (ongoing), and Mapping Global Architectural Histories on Modernism, a collaboration between MIT and UPM aimed at a quantitative revision of the history of modern architecture.

She has authored more than 30 scientific works — articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings — including the recent texts “La influencia del automóvil en la arquitectura de Kevin Roche y John Dinkeloo” (VLC, 2024) and “Fernando Cavestany, arquitecto y dibujante” (EGA, 2023, with Íñigo Cobeta). She has presented at more than 20 international conferences and is a member of the Society of Architectural Historians.

Before joining UPM full-time, Sánchez Carrasco combined her academic career with architectural practice. Between 2007 and 2012, she ran her own studio with Jorge Martínez Martín, winner of several open architecture competitions and builder of 168 public housing units in Carabanchel, Madrid, for the Empresa Municipal de Vivienda y Suelo. From 2014 to 2021, she worked at Estudio Álvarez-Sala, where she led the restoration of the Convento de las Salesas in Pamplona, shortlisted for the FAD Awards and recognized by the Asprima and COAM Awards.

Sánchez-Carrasco, L., Tippey, B., & Cobeta-Gutiérrez, Í. (2024). Highrise Classicism: Ricardo Bofill and Taller de Arquitectura in the United States. Histories of Postwar Architecture, 7(15), 114–135.

Sánchez-Carrasco, L. (2024). The influence of motor vehicles in the architecture of Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo. VLC arquitectura, 1(11), 33–54. ISSN: 2341-3050.

García Carbonero, M., Esteban Maluenda, A., Sánchez Carrasco, L., Jarzombek, M., & Abu-Hamdi Murchie, E. (2024). Charting the Recent Past: Digital Analysis for a Historiography of Modern Architecture. Život umjetnosti, 114(1), 50–91.

Soler Montellano, A., & Sánchez Carrasco, L. (2024). Discontinuidad y multiplicación: génesis de un léxico gráfico para la vivienda flexible en la modernidad. EGA Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica, 29(52), 84–99.

Sánchez Carrasco, L., & Cobeta Gutiérrez, Íñigo (2023). Fernando Cavestany, arquitecto y dibujante. EGA Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica, 28(48), 240–253.