Emilio Ambasz won a 1980 Progressive Architecture Award and his first international accolades for the Casa de Retiro Spiritual in southern Spain (shown). Though the unforgettable structure was built as a single-family house, its name calls to mind a Churrigueresque monastery, and its design may be the closest equivalent that architecture has to the literary movement known as Magical Realism, as practiced by Gabriel García Márquez and other Latin writers. So perhaps it is fitting that the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid is hosting the retrospective Inventions: Emilio Ambasz, Architecture and Design. The exhibit draws not only on his work as an architect, but as a graphic and industrial designer. Through Jan. 16. • museoreinasofia.es
