Rafael Moneo is the winner of the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts, in competition with 39 candidates from 25 countries. The award-winner is the architect who designed the Museo Universidad de Navarra project, currently under construction and scheduled to open in 2014. Its total surface area amounts to 11,000 square meters, spread over 3 floors, of which 3,000 will be dedicated to the exhibition area. It is also worth mentioning its auditorium, with 700 seats and a high level of stage equipment, a place for holding congresses and performing arts such as dance, music, cinema and theater, among others.

A personal friend of the Navarre collector María Josefa Huarte -who, by donating her collection, became the trigger for the implementation of this museum project-, Rafael Moneo thought from the beginning that "the enclosure that was to house her work should represent the collector's own taste for the linear and abstract". Likewise, due to his deep knowledge of the University of Navarra, he conceived it as a bridge between the city and the campus, so that the site would also collaborate with the idea of expanding contemporary art to both the university students and the society in which it is located.

His long career in the design of art centers makes Moneo an expert in the construction required for a museum. Buildings such as the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum, the extension of the Prado Museum, the Kursaal in San Sebastian, or abroad the Fine Arts in Houston or the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, are his work.

The eight Prince of Asturias Awards, now in their 32nd year, are endowed with 50,000 euros and a reproduction of a sculpture designed by Joan Miró, and will be presented in October by Don Felipe de Borbón at the Campoamor Theater in Oviedo.