Madrid's own Royal Academy of Fine Arts was the stage of the 2018 Rafael Manzano Prize award ceremony, established in Portugal by the Serra Henriques Foundation and counting on the High Patronage of the President of the Portuguese Republic. The previous edition distinguished the work of Juan de Dios de la Hoz and his mastery of traditional forms and techniques, shown in many of his interventions on architectonic heritage.

Born in Madrid in 1963, Juan de Dios de la Hoz got his degree from Madrid's Architecture School in 1988, and, in 1996, concluded his master's degree in Patrimonial Restoration and Rehabilitation at the University of Valladolid and the University of Alcalá de Henares. From 2003 to 2013, he was a professor at Universidad Camilo José Cela's Architecture School, in Madrid, where he taught Restoration and Rehabilitation. He was also an invited speaker at various conferences, seminars and sessions related to the recovery of architectonic heritage, in various universities in Spain and abroad, as well as professor in courses on traditional construction materials and techniques, and their use in the restoration of monuments.

The Rafael Manzano Prize is organised by the Spanish delegation of INTBAU (International Network for Traditional Architecture) and the Serra Henriques Foundation, to distinguish the career of those that contribute the most to the rehabilitation of buildings and urban ensembles of historic and artistic value or new constructions built using traditional materials and crafts.

It is the biggest architecture prize in the Iberian peninsula with the monetary value of EUR 50 000, thanks to the generosity of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.