Est. MCMXCIV
Architect · Collector · Patron
Three decades of quiet practice, creating estates, museums, and chapels designed as enduring instruments of permanence.
Featured Work
Villa al Mare
Costa Smeralda · 2021
Sebastian Alvaro's work refuses fashion. For more than thirty years, across four continents, his studios have pursued an architecture measured not by contemporary taste, but by the long silence of the decades that follow completion.
A building gives form to permanence. Our digital permanence records extend that philosophy beyond the physical, preserving provenance, conservation history, and institutional memory within immutable archival systems. Different medium. The same patient question: what deserves to remain?
1994
founded in madrid
57
architectural commissions
31
Years of stewardship
190+
Works in the alvaro collection
Architecture
Every commission begins with a belief that architecture should endure beyond the era in which it is conceived. Alongside each completed work, Casa Alvaro maintains a permanent archive documenting its provenance, material history, and conservation, extending the life of the project beyond its physical presence.
No. 01 · 2023
Lisbon, Portugal
A cultural pavilion clad in patinated bronze, designed for a private foundation along the Tagus. The weathering of the facade is treated as the building's slow autobiography.
Cultural Pavilion · 2,400 m²
No. 02 · 2022
Andalusia, Spain
A private residence organized around an ancient olive grove. Travertine, lime plaster, and reclaimed oak; rooms scaled to the rhythm of the trees.
Private Residence · 1,180 m²
No. 03 · 2020
Granada, Spain
A chapel for a contemplative order. A single oculus, a stone altar, and walls of rammed earth. An architecture reduced to light and gravity.
Sacred · 220 m²
Collection
Casa Alvaro brings together over one hundred and ninety works spanning more than two millennia, from Han dynasty bronzes and Anatolian ceramics to post-war abstraction and the contemporary canon. Selected works are placed on long-term loan to leading museums and cultural institutions in Madrid, Tokyo, and Basel, where they continue to contribute to public scholarship and exhibition.
Alongside the physical collection, Casa Alvaro has developed permanent digital archives for selected works. Each record preserves provenance, conservation history, exhibition activity, and custodial continuity within a secure, immutable framework, ensuring that the historical identity of every work endures alongside the object itself.
Tang Dynasty · c. 8th century
Bodhisattva, bronze
Acquired 2014, Hong Kong
Contemporary · 2008
Terre Brûlée
Mixed media impasto on canvas, 2008
Anatolia · 7th c. BC
Ceremonial jug
On loan to Museo del Prado, 2019–
Perspective
Portrait · Studio Madrid, 2024
"The architect's greatest gift is patience. We work with materials older than ourselves: stone, light, water, and time. The task is not to impose, but to listen, and then to place a wall exactly where it belongs."
"Physical permanence in architecture finds its complement in permanent digital archives. What stone and light preserve through the passage of time, immutable provenance records and conservation documentation now preserve through history, ensuring that every work endures in both form and memory."
Born in Seville in 1965, Sebastian Alvaro studied architecture in Madrid and at Yale before founding Casa Alvaro in 1994. More than three decades later, the practice remains intentionally compact, allowing every commission, every acquisition, and every archive to receive the same measure of attention.
Recipient of the Premio Nacional de Arquitectura (2011), the Mies van der Rohe nomination (2017), and the RIBA International Fellowship (2022). His writing on architecture and collecting appears regularly in Domus, El Croquis, and Apollo.
He serves on the acquisitions committee of the Reina Sofía and as patron of the Foundation for Andalusian Craft. He lives between Madrid and the Costa Smeralda.
2022
RIBA Fellow
2017
Mies Nomination
2011
Premio Nacional
Contact
Casa Alvaro accepts a limited number of architectural commissions each year while continuing the stewardship of its permanent collection and archival initiatives. Correspondence regarding commissions, institutional partnerships, collection loans, conservation, and digital permanence records is welcomed by appointment.
Correspondence
Office of the Founder
Sebastian Alvaro
Founder & Principal Architect
studio@casaalvaro.online