He rejected modernity and returned to antiquity. Ricardo Bofill also changed part of Prague
The struggle of generations has always taken place in the creative development of humanity. What one loved and considered essential, the other would reject and stand on her head. But over time, another will come and do the same. Architecture in the 20th century also experienced such turbulence. First came modernism, which rejected decorations and established simplicity. Over time, however, many architects overeat it. In the 1960s, a postmodern was created, which returned to classicism and, with a certain amount of humor, began to compose buildings eclectically from modern elements and historical styles.
This current also attracted the Catalan Ricardo Bofill, who wrote among the most famous representatives of that style. In 1963, the architect and friends founded the Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura studio in Barcelona. He benefited from Catalan traditions and used the ideas of writers and artists in the team.
Imaginative geometry has always been present in his work, and since the 1970s also a strong influence of classicism. Prague’s buildings date back to the period when he got rid of him. Ricardo Bofill died in January this year at the age of 82 of complications related to the covid.
Living and working in a former cement plant
The core of the events around Bofill is the La Fabrica complex in Barcelona. In 1973, the architect was enchanted by a cement plant from the 1920s, which was to be demolished. He bought her and gave her a new life. He rebuilt it into the seat of his office and housing for his own family.
The concept of construction, in which brutalism is mixed with traditionalism, is a manifestation of Bofill’s view of the world and creation. The architect placed work rooms for 70 people in 15-meter-high silos. The center is a ten meter high conference and exhibition space called the Cathedral.
Apartment building inspired by the rock
Bofill and his team most often experimented with modular geometry, especially in residential areas. One of the first was the 1971 Xanadu house on a cliff in Alicante, Spain. He shaped the nearby rock. It includes 18 apartments, each of which consists of three cubes. The shape of the cubes was then adjusted with respect to local construction technology, the need to build shaded terraces due to the heat and hyperbolically bend the roofs to achieve a better view.
Residential Arabian fortress from the Mediterranean
Right next to the Xanadú building, the architect completed the La Muralla Roja or Red Wall apartment complex two years later. It belongs to its geometrically constructed buildings, which resemble abstract paintings and dreamy, intricately constructed mazes in the style of imaginary paintings by the painter Escher.
La Muralla Roja refers to the folk architecture of the Arabian Mediterranean and constructivism. The architect breaks down the traditional division between public and private spaces. The 50-apartment complex has a precise geometric plan based on a structure of intertwined Greek crosses. The walls have shades of red, blue and purple.
Highway monument in the shape of a pyramid
When the motorway connecting France and Spain was completed in the 1970s, heaps of excavated soil remained after construction. In 1976, Bofill’s office was commissioned to build a monument that used this material and revived the road at the same time. Bofill modeled a pyramid inspired by the Latin American ones on the border between France and Spain. It has sides 100 meters wide, 80 meters and is covered by a French garden.
Baroque palace with hundreds of apartments
In the 1970s, Bofill began working in France, and elements of French classicism penetrated his architecture. At that time, there was a new French policy for new cities. France has decided to create nine new cities so that people do not concentrate so much in a few metropolises. Opportunities were offered for large-scale experiments, and Bofill’s imagination was given an opportunity.
The architect created several such projects, one of which was the residential area of Les Espaces d’Abraxas in Marne la Vallée from 1982. It contains over 500 apartments and Bofill designed it as a monumental Baroque space with French and Mediterranean elements. The architect repeated the composition using an arch with classical columns on other constructions.
Head office Swift
From the mid-1980s, Bofill began to use a lot of steel and glass, but still adhered to the Classicist vocabulary. This is clearly evident at the headquarters of the Swift interbank communications company in La Hulpe, Belgium, in 1989. Yes, this is the Swift that has been much talked about in connection with sanctions against Russia.
The company’s headquarters are located on a large wooded plot, opposite the 19th-century chateau. In the building design, the architect combined classicism with Frank Lloyd Wright’s favorite elements and hi-tech style.
Barcelona Olympic Village
Ricardo Bofill was an important architect in the preparation of the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. In addition to the expansion of the airport and the hall for wrestlers, they also designed part of the Olympic Village. The buildings, completed in 1991, now serve 113 families. The central tower completes the two longitudinal wings. Facades with abundant face bricks are based on Catalan building traditions.
Chicago skyscraper with a temple at the top
The 77 West Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago from 1992 made Bofilla famous in North America. The architect himself considered it a major milestone in the work, he designed it in the style of modern classicism. It is supposed to resemble Giotto’s Gothic bell tower of the cathedral in Florence, the top of the 50-storey building is crowned by an ancient church with classic proportions.
National Theater of Catalonia
Bofill continued the Greek architectural tradition with the 1997 National Theater of Catalonia in Barcelona. From the outside, it resembles an ancient temple, the auditorium of the main hall with 1000 seats is arranged as a semicircular amphitheater. Two exposed concrete colonnades support a metal and glass roof. The glass walls offer exterior views of the plant-filled lobby.
Cultural center with a wavy roof
After the year 2000, the architect gradually began to get rid of classical elements in his work. You will no longer find them at the 2007 Miguel Delibes Cultural Center in Valladolid, Spain, which houses the Castile and Leon Symphony Orchestra. However, on a building with a multi-purpose cultural use of music, theater and dance, it can be seen that geometry remained important for Bofill. Three separate parts are integrated under one roof, which has the symbolic shape of a sound wave.
Buildings on the Barcelona promenade
In 2009, W Hotel Barcelona became an iconic landmark of Barcelona’s port, beach and promenade as part of the city’s renewal. Like the Dubai Hotel Burj Al Arab, it has the shape of a taut sail, but in a reduced geometric form. The color of the facade is designed to reflect the sea and the sky, making it almost invisible.
The Desigual clothing brand headquarters office building has been adjacent to the hotel since 2012. It has the floor plan of an elongated trapezoid and, thanks to the reflections of light from the glass walls, it looks ethereal.
Municipal court
Towards the end of his life, Ricardo Bofill visibly entered the form of Karlín in Prague, where he reconstructed several industrial buildings and built new office centers. In 2016, the Municipal Court in Josefov also converted it into luxury apartments.
The former farmyard dates from the second half of the 15th century. Its architectural development mixes the Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassicism, so the complex had to be close to the architect. However, Bofill did not add anything postmodern to the renovated historic buildings, but new buildings in the shape of a simple gray block. The facade is covered with microperforation sheet metal. The same is used to shade the windows, so it looks like an impenetrable fortress when the cube is pulled.