Javier Fernández Contreras (Granada, 1982) is an architect, an associate professor and the head of the Space Design/Interior Architecture Department at HEAD – Genève. His work explores the relationship between architecture, representation and media, with a specific focus on the role of interiors in the construction of contemporaneity. He holds a master's degree in Architecture and a PhD in Architectural Theory (summa cum laude) from ETSAM at the Technical University of Madrid.
Contreras is the director of several academic and research programs, including the Master of Arts in Interior Architecture (MAIA), Switzerland’s first master’s program in the field, which explores contemporary interiors at the intersection of space, ecology and media; Scènes de Nuit, a research platform investigating the relationship between night and space while questioning architecture’s daylight paradigms; The Interiors of Social Media, a project that examines the impact of social media platforms on 21st-century architecture, focusing on interior spaces as sites of commodification, display and mediatization; and The Future of Humanitarian Design (HUD), a program that brings design and political science together to address the growing challenges of humanitarian action, in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute, the University of Copenhagen and the EssentialTech Centre at EPFL.
Contreras regularly publishes in a variety of specialized books and journals. He is the author of The Interiors of Social Media (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2026; Puente Editores, 2026), which was included in the central exhibition of the 2026 UIA World Congress of Architects in Barcelona; Manifesto of Interiors: Thinking in the Expanded Media (HEAD – Publishing, 2021; Puente Editores, 2022), which was selected for the XVI Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (BEAU); and The Miralles Projection (AR+D, 2020). He is the co-editor of Nothing About Interior Architecture (Set Margins’, 2025), winner of the 2025 AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers award; A Nocturnal History of Architecture (Spector Books, 2024); Intimacy Exposed: Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom (Spector Books, 2023); and Scènes de Nuit: Night & Architecture (Ediciones Asimétricas, 2021). His critical essays have been published in a variety of specialized publications, including monographs dedicated to the works of Marie-José Van Hee and India Mahdavi as well as journals such as e-flux Architecture, PLOT, KoozArch, Burning Farm and Drawing Matter.
His work has received numerous international distinctions. In 2024, Contreras served as president of the jury for the FAD Awards – Thought and Criticism category, which is Spain and Portugal’s most important prize in architectural theory. Recent distinctions for projects carried out with HEAD – Genève include the 2026 Red Dot Award for Inclusive Tables, developed with the Clair Bois Foundation in Geneva; a 2025 Swiss Arc Award nomination for De/Construction – Stories of Applied Reuse; a 2025 Créateurs Design Award nomination for 2084: A Diorama of the Future, which was presented at Alcova during Milan Design Week 2024; and the 2023 FRAME Award (Set Design of the Year) for Playing Fields, a collaboration with the European Heritage Days program and the Servette Football Club. Earlier independent awards include first prize in the 2020 Concéntrico Architecture and Design Festival competition for the Prismarium project, and first prize in the 2019 F’AR Lausanne curatorial competition for the Scènes de Nuit exhibition.
Help
SWITCH edu-ID
Administration
