Josep Maria researches on the connections between architecture, the idea of nature, ecology and the environment, and experimental preservation. As well as on heritage-making processes, preservation, and architectural history.

He researches on architecture from an interdisciplinary approach which also investigates the cultural, political and social aspects of architecture and the environment. For this reason, most of his research is inscribed within different international research projects in which Josep Maria is currently participating together with historians, historians of science, anthropologists, political scientists, and other architects.

Josep Maria is currently researching on an ambitious project to write The Natural History of Modern Architecture. This is a project aimed to revisit the historiography of modern architecture in the light of the evolving relation between the concepts of nature, ecology, and the environment, and architecture since 18th century until today. It investigates the architectural history of modernity from a new point of view, as it searches for exciting ideas and theories about how architecture could face our current ecological and environmental crisis. This an on-going research that has already drawn attention of colleagues through a series of preliminary publications, invited lectures, seminars and courses in different international prestigious institutions.

In his PhD dissertation, The Construction of Modern Montserrat, Josep Maria analysed the long 19th and 20th century heritage-making process of Montserrat, the important mountain shrine-monastery outside of Barcelona. In the study, architecture is understood as the outcome of the tensions that took place between the different ideological groups who tried to capitalize the symbolism of the intriguing mountain, its environment, and its relationship with the city Barcelona. The connection between Montserrat and the Catalan Modernista architecture through the work of Antoni Gaudí, and his attempts to elaborate an architectural interpretation of the mountain of Montserrat in most his buildings. This research has shed new light on the national construction of Spain and Catalonia, in the understanding of Montserrat, and on the work of architects like Gaudí, as well as in wider debates on heritage, experimental preservation, and on the relation between architecture and nature. Josep Maria’s PhD dissertation was defended at the School of Architecture of Barcelona and awarded Cum Laude, the highest grade with honours, by an international and interdisciplinary committee chaired by Prof. Oriol Bohigas, including Prof. Juan José Lahuerta, Prof. Sergio Pace, Prof. Enric Ucelay-Da Cal, and Prof. Joan Ganau.

Josep Maria publishes widely about his research in peer-reviewed academic publications at international level, and he speaks about them at invited keynote lectures. Furthermore, the interest on his research and professional work has been reflected in numerous invited talks and collaborations in the media. You can learn more about Josep Maria’s publications, and read some of them online. You are also much welcome to contact him to discuss any of his publications or if you want to propose a collaboration for a publication or research project.