Ruben Castro
*1990, Brussels, Belgium
Ruben Castro understands architecture and visual art as interconnected models of thinking, production, and reflection. There is no sharp distinction between maquettes and sculptures, design sketches and graphic art. All aspects of his work testify to care, sensitivity, and calm. What matters is not the category, but the intensity of attention. Castro deliberately slows the process, treating slowness as a condition for looking. It appears in analogue large-format photography, in drawing as an extended act of looking, and in models that are not representations but thinking tools, spaces where ideas are tested, paused, and restarted.
Born in Belgium in 1990, Castro graduated cum laude in architecture in 2014. He worked for several years in Switzerland and Belgium for renowned architectural practices, while simultaneously developing an artistic practice through research, teaching, and exhibitions. His trajectory is shaped by a continuous movement between making, reflecting, and teaching. Castro has been the recipient of several distinctions. His work has been shown internationally in institutions spanning architecture, contemporary art, and photography, including exhibitions at the Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur, Switzerland.
Alongside his practice, his academic work serves as a reflective double of the studio practice. He has held teaching positions at EPFL Lausanne, the Rotterdamse Academie van Bouwkunst, and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de La Cambre, and is currently teaching a design studio at the Graduate School of Architecture at Konkuk University in Seoul and at the Sint-Lucas Ghent Faculty of Architecture at KU Leuven. Teaching, for him, is not a parallel activity but an extension of the work itself: a space for dialogue, transmission, and continuous questioning.