On 12 November, the Spanish Ministry for Housing and the Urban Agenda announced that the 2023 National Architecture Award was to be presented to architects Ángela García de Paredes (b. Madrid, 1958) and Ignacio García Pedrosa (b. Madrid, 1957), founders of Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos. The prize, first conferred in 1932, is awarded in recognition of the overall oeuvre of a firm or individual architect. It includes a prize sum of €60,000.

The jury's decision was unanimous. In their citation, they mentioned 'García de Paredes and García Pedrosa's active and versatile contribution to architecture, with an indubitable show of generosity towards the profession and related disciplines'. The architects' projects across Spain have had 'a strong transformational impact and have contributed to regenerating the national cultural fabric'. They also referred to the architects' extensive work in the academic and research field and their curatorial activities, which have played an important part in disseminating, publicising and showcasing architecture and architectural theory in Spain.

Ángeles García de Paredes and Ignacio García Pedrosa studied at the Madrid School of Architecture. After graduating, they began working at the studio of José María García Paredes in the early 1980s. It was a key moment in their careers; as well as providing them with an exceptional learning experience, it brought them into direct contact with a generation of figures who had brought modern architecture to Spain, despite working with limited resources in an often unreceptive environment.

In 1990, the pair founded their own studio. Since then, they have combined their architectural work with teaching, reviews and research, mainly at the Madrid School of Architecture, but also in other academic institutions in Spain and abroad. They were the curators of the Spanish Pavilion at the 1996 Venice Biennale of Architecture and of the 2012 and 2016 Ibero-American Biennials of Architecture and Urbanism, held in Cadiz and São Paulo respectively.   

In the words of Richard Ingersoll, their oeuvre 'is characterized by its telluric sense and its tectonic strength, but above all by its inescapable public role'. Paredes Pedrosa have always sought to fuse tradition and modernism in their designs, focusing particularly on historical legacy and the dialogue between architecture and other disciplines.

^{Interventions by Paredes and Pedrosa Arquitectos at the Banco de España building on Plaza de Cibeles. 1986-2018}

An essential area of their work is in the field of heritage intervention, including a number of actions undertaken at the Banco de España building on Plaza de Cibeles between 1986 and 2018. These include the refurbishment of the attic floor for the Legal Department; construction of a new vertical communications core, transforming an old secondary staircase into an unusual exhibition space hosting Euro Zone, an installation by Ignasi Aballí and the recent renovation of the lower ground floor in the bank's former general archive, a project which won them several awards, including the 2018 Official Madrid College of Architects (COAM) Award and the 2018 prize at the Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism.

As explained on their website, based on a reading of early plans of the building, these interventions have enabled them to recover hidden and unknown interiors, 'which have been highlighted and repurposed to meet the bank's current and changing requirements'. In addition, 'as well as introducing new architectures into these interiors [...] any ornamentation and construction features that have been found have also been restored'.

The National Architecture Award is only the latest in a long list of prizes garnered by the firm in recent years, including the 2007 Spanish Architecture Award from the Higher Council of Spanish Architects' Associations (CSCAE) and the 2014 Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, awarded by the Ministry of Culture to individuals and organisations that have excelled in the field of artistic and cultural creation.