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Alejandro Zaera-Polo is the founding partner of Foreign Office Architects (FOA), a London-based firm. Under his stewardship, FOA has completed numerous projects around the world, including a John Lewis department store and Cineplex at the Shires West Development, Leicester, in the UK.
His projects completed in Asia include the Spanish Pavilion at the 2005 Aichi International Expo in Japan and Yokohama International Port Terminal in Kanagawa, Japan. FOA is currently building two 180-metre high housing towers at the World Business Centre in Busan, South Korea, and Residential Towers in KL Sentral’s Plot D in Kuala Lumpur.
Zaera-Polo served as the dean of the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, for four years and was the unit master at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, Columbia University in New York, Princeton University, the School of Architecture in Madrid, Spain, and the Yokohama School of Architecture in Japan where he currently holds an advisory role. 
He trained at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and ETS Architecture in Madrid prior to establishing FOA.
He has also been an adviser to several committees, including the Quality Commission for Architecture in Barcelona City and the Advisory Committee for Urban Development of the City of Madrid.
He is a member of the Urban Age think tank of the London School of Economics and has published extensively as a critic in professional magazines worldwide. El Croquis, Quaderns, A+U, Arch+ and Harvard Design Magazine feature his work regularly.
This article appeared in City & Country, the property pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 812, June 28-July 4, 2010
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