Maria Nicanor is a

Spanish-American Spanish Americans ( es, españoles estadounidenses, ''hispanoestadounidenses'', or ''hispanonorteamericanos'') are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from Spain. They are the longest-established European American group in ...

museum curator specializing in design and history of architecture. She has held significant positions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Guggenheim, and the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt Museum.

Early life and education

Nicanor was born in Barcelona. Her father is a filmmaker; her mother is a lawyer specializing in intellectual property in the arts. Nicanor received a bachelor's degree from the

Autonomous University of Madrid The Autonomous University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; UAM), commonly known as simply la Autónoma, is a Spanish public university located in Madrid, Spain. The university was founded in 1968 alongside the Autonomous Universi ...

, with a major in the theory and history of architecture. She also studied at the

Sorbonne University Sorbonne University (french: Sorbonne Université; la Sorbonne: 'the Sorbonne') is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sorbon ...

and completed a master's degree in museum studies at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

Career

She was the first director of the

Norman Foster Foundation Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

in Madrid. She was the architecture and design curator at the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in London. Nicanor had various roles at the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

in New York from 2003 and 2013 including a role as the curator of architecture and design. She was the leader of the team for the traveling laboratory called the

BMW Guggenheim Lab The BMW Guggenheim Lab was a collaboration between the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the BMW Group between 2011 and 2013. Part urban think tank, part community center and part gathering space, the interdisciplinary mobile laboratory explored ...

. She became the executive director of the Rice Design Alliance at the

Rice University School of Architecture Rice School of Architecture, also referred to as ''Rice Architecture'', is a small undergraduate and graduate institution located within the international research university, Rice University in Houston, Texas. The graduate and undergraduate progr ...

in 2017.

References

Spanish women curators Spanish architectural historians Spanish women historians Museum administrators Directors of museums in Spain Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Spanish curators {{US-academic-bio-stub