Xavier Rubert de Ventós (Barcelona, 1939 - 2023) has been a Professor of Aesthetics at the School of Architecture in Barcelona, Santayana Fellow at Harvard University, founding member of The New York Institute for the Humanities and founder of the Mies van del Rohe European Architecture Prize. Furthermore, he’s also been a member of the Spanish and European Parlament.
As a writer, he has an impressive number of works on Philosophy, Aesthetics, Ethics and Politics among which El arte ensimismado (Ariel, 1963, City of Barcelona Prize), TeorÃa de la sensibilitat (Edicions 62, 1968; Lletra d’Or Prize; Revised edition 2007), La estética y sus herejÃas (Anagrama, 1980; Anagrama Essay Prize 1980), Per què filosofÃa (Edicions 62, 1983), El laberinto de la hispanidad (Planeta, 1987, Espejo de España Prize; Anagrama.1999); El cortesano y su fantasma (Destino, 1991; Editorial Sexto Piso, 2008), Ética sin atributos (Anagrama, 1996), Dios, entre otros inconvenientes (Anagrama, 2000) and Filosofia d’estar per casa (Ara Llibres, 2004) to name just a few.
2012 saw the publication (in Spanish in Anagrama and in Catalan in Edicions 62) of Dimonis Ãntims, an enthralling blend of essay and memoir. After the publication of a revised and updated edition of Catalunya: de la identitat a la independència (Empúries, 2014), his latest published work is Si no corro, caic (Empúries, 2017), a collection of aforisms, experiences, notes and reflections by an exceptional personality.
