Ricardo Bak Gordon was born in Lisbon in 1967. He graduated in 1990 at Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa. During his studies, he also attended Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto and Politecnico di Milano.
He was teaching at the Integrated Master Degree (MSc) in Architecture at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon between 2009 and 2019, and at the Escuela de Arquitectura da Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, between 2017 and 2019.
He was also a Visiting Design Critic between 2015 and 2017 at Harvard GSD, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He lectured (and/or attended as visiting teacher) at several universities and institutions such as Universidad de Navarra, Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, IUAV di Venezia and Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona.
His activity as an architect has been developed since 1990, and in the year 2002 he created the studio Bak Gordon Arquitectos, where currently works.
He was the author of the Portugal Pavilion in ExpoZaragoza 2008, the Portugal Pavilion in São Paulo Biennale 2007 and the exhibition project of Lisbon International Architecture Trienal 2007. He has designed, in co-authorship, the new National Coach Museum in Lisbon.
He has a built work both in private and public domain, of which it stands out as processes in schools, carried out in Portugal and Switzerland.
His work as an architect was present in several exhibitions in Portugal, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany, Czech Republic, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Macau, South Korea and Japan; and was publish on prestigious editions of the specialty.
He was a nominee for the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2009, 2011 and 2022; winner of the FAD Prize 2011 (Barcelona,Spain), BIAU Prize 2012 (Cádiz, Spain), CICA Prize BA2015 (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and APCA Prize (São Paulo, Brazil).
He was one of Portugal’s representatives at the Venice Biennale in 2010, 2012, 2018 and in the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial.
His work integrates the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) architecture collection.
In 2019, he was awarded the prize by the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) for his work as a whole.
In 2021 he was awarded the international prize BIGMAT and in 2022 the Portuguese National Prize for Architecture FORMA.
