Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura

In 1963 Ricardo Bofill joined his family business, forming the Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura. Since its founding, he serves as Director and Chairman of the firms’ numerous offices throughout the world. Born in 1939 in Barcelona, Spain, he studied at the Barcelona University School of Architecture and graduated from the School of Geneva. He is an honorary AIA member, and has won numerous awards throughout the world for architecture. Further, he is a published author, co-writing Espaces d’une vie and L’Architecture des Villes.[4]

Hodgkinson is a Partner architect and has been with El Taller since 1966. He was born in England in 1940, and received his degree from the Architectural Academy in London. He has published in numerous specialized journals such as: AR, AD, Record, etc., and spoken as guest lecturer in Australia, South Africa, England, France, the Netherlands, and Scotland.[5]

He has been involved with and studied all facets of architectural project design, with especial emphasis on transport infrastructures, airports in particular, where he has gained considerable experience in solving functional problems involving flows and circulations.[6]

Jean-Pierre Carniaux is a Partner architect and has been with El Taller since 1976, heading the practice former offices in New York City in 1986. He was born in France in 1951 and studied mathematics at Université de Paris and Architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Carniaux's design work ranges from the design of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, a 240 000 m² mixed-use development for a district of Montpellier, Antigone District, and the Shiseido Headquarter in Tokyo to the design of perfume bottles for Christian Dior.[7] He has participated in the projects of the new airport of Barcelona, a 50-story skyscraper in Chicago, and a Palace of Congress in Madrid.[8] His work has taken him to Moscow, Paris, New York City, Montreal, Tokyo, and other cities in France.

The firm specific design methodology, formalized within the last 50 years, focuses on the dialogue between the architect, local developers and local partners. Bofill claims that by engaging all stakeholders throughout the entire process, from the very inception, until after the project is completed, el Taller's works are defined by the necessities and desires of those who inhabit them. This singular approach allows El Taller to address all projects, both small- scale private and large- scale urban, with equal rigour.[11]

A constant theme dictates Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura's work, regardless of location, decade or typology—that of, what the firm itself refers to as ‘Memory-Future.’ "Its work draws upon the past, referencing local histories, classical compositions, and/ or traditional building methods, while imagining and innovating stylistically and programmatically to meet the needs and desires of the community that is yet to inhabit these spaces. The present, the designing of these spaces, lies between retrospect and prospect—Memory –Future ».[12]

The use of a historical perspective in its design approach allows the team for continual analysis and interpretation of a given culture and its architectural heritage. In contrast to Socialist and Le Corbusier#urbanism urban planning models, Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura proposes a Mediterranean city model. Such model is defined by a network of public space that connects proportionally scaled streets and squares.[13] “Mediterranean city” is at the same time cast as an interregional synthesis, a complex region of interrelating regions. This intense set of cultural, social and material interactions highlights the capitalist and cosmopolitan dimensions of the Mediterranean.”[14]

In his book ”Espaces d'une vie” Ricardo Bofill states, ”it is essential to recover the discipline developed during the Renaissance—city design. Personally, I support a strategy of controlled, organized, properly planned urban growth (…) my involvement has always been guided by the same principles—to lay out a city in line with the ideas of Ildefons Sardà, the civil engineer who designed Barcelona's magnificent grid-patterned district known as the Eixample. Urban sprawl must have its limits and should not, under the guise of continuity, annex other towns. Urban design must be reintroduced in existing districts by isolating, preserving and renovating certain areas, turning them into real communities with shopping centers, squares, streets, facades and of course, boundaries”.[15]

The recurrence of mixed-use cities in their works, with, as the firm refers to as, ”integrated urbanism” suggests El Taller strong conviction that a city equally belongs to and is shared amongst all socio- economic classes.

El Taller's early works are characteristic of vernacular architecture, referencing traditional Catalan architecture; as seen in Bofill's residence in Ibiza, a seaside residence that utilizes local materials and construction methods. This architectural strategy applies a geometric logic towards the organization of elements in space. Developed first in a theoretical manner with the project The City in Space, the formal approach found its concrete manifestation in 1975 with the construction of subsidized housing project Walden 7. The apartment complex comprises a 14-story cluster of 446 units that maximize both scale and intricacy. In an article for Architectural Design, Vincent Scully described Walden 7 as a wildly expressionistic apartment house, part Gaudí, part Archigram.[16] Repeating apartment modules, with private micro terraces and connected via striking interior public courtyards, were intended to provoke a rethinking of social housing.

Kafka Castle is located in Sant Pere de Ribes, Spain, and completed in 1968. The project is an homage to Franz Kafka. Rather than a development through site, plan, and context, Bofill implemented a series of mathematical equations that generated the positions of all ninety dwellings, as well as the building's siting. Though Kafka Castle maintains some programmatic similarities of a typical Spanish apartment block, the design of the apartment complex differs greatly. Prefabricated cubes are assembled together, based on two mathematical equations that generate their placement with relationship to a vertical circulation towers. Muralla Roja, built in 1973, continues the firm's investigation on the organic manifestation of form, the imposition of defined criteria and condition, and locus. Color defines each structural function, serving as tectonic place finders for the labyrinth- like edifice. Despite its constructionist aesthetic, Muralla Roja is a clear reference to the Mediterranean architectural roots, particularly North African adobe towers and Kasbah.

The experimental prototype Xanadu reflects the team's theory of a garden city in space. The building is intended to create a castle, manifesting in the form of the Peñon de Ifach rock located nearby[17] The modules possess vernacular details, curving handrails, and roof elements, synthesizing modernist principles with traditional aesthetics.[18]

In the early 1970s, El Taller began to collaborate with the Algerian government on topics related to the urban planning and housing fields. This early work in Algeria culminates two years later with the construction of the vernacular housing project, Houari Boumédienne Agricultural Village, in the south-eastern part of the country.

In tandem with efforts in Spain and Algeria, a complimentary team began working in Paris in 1971, creating various projects for the French New Towns.[19] The headquarters is moved to Paris, and El Taller shifts its focus onto the industrialized construction of social housing and master planning. During this phase, symbolic elements are incorporated into the buildings and plans, which reference the style of French monumental architecture. Bofill assessed the need of some permanent and integral form of wall covering for future buildings with columns, pilasters, rustication, pediments, cornices and balustrades.[20]

In the self-published book, Memory-Future, El Taller reasons its use of classical proportion and form, because it allowed for the in-depth investigation of the articulation between historic memory and freedom, of conception and expression. For this purpose, it has created a dictionary, a grammar and a language applied to architectural composition, ”rewriting" the western, classical vocabulary.[21]

The urban housing proposals, La Petite Cathédrale and Les Espaces D’ Abraxas, represent the spectrum of social living ideas integrated into these inhabited monuments. Les Espaces D’ Abraxas[22] also delves into the manipulation of classical forms of architecture.[23]

The simultaneous construction of four projects REF– Les Arcades du Lac and Le Viaduc in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Le Palais d’Abraxas, Le Théâtre, and L’Arc in Marne-la-Vallée, Les Echelles du Baroque in Paris, and Antigone in Montpellier – mark one of El Taller's most prolific periods. Built over two decades, the Antigone district of Montpellier encompasses 4 million square feet of mixed-use development. The large-scale urban master plan is typical of the Mediterranean. “Using classical architecture to provide human scale and proportion, Antigone intends to breaks up the monotony of precast construction to generate a palace for the people. It is the classical language rethought and reconstituted in terms of the contemporary industrial technique of precast concrete construction, assembled piece by piece in a discrete order even more systematic than that sustained in the older, carved and hand-modelled way of classical building.”[24]

Ricado Bofill describes the firm's work as varying “from a Mediterranean and European type of urbanism of urban continuity to an American type of urbanism made up of separate pieces as well as the combination of both types. At the same time, the "Taller" has been able to adapt from neighbourhood scale to city design. Each city, as is also true of individuals, has its own identity and personality: this provides the key element for its own urban project.”[25]

El Taller works with city and government officials and private developers to help rethink city’s growth, through the structure of master planning. Notably, el Taller partook in the large- scale master plan competitions such as the Boston Central Artery, which resulted in the Big Dig; 2012’s Moscow Agglomeration’s Extension, sought to move the Federal Center outside of the Kremlin and doubled the city’s boundaries; and most recently Dallas’ Connected City Design Challenge, which attempts to help regenerate the city center and connect it to a new river park.

Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura utilizes urban design as the “instrument for spatial organization, in keeping with the great Italian and French classical tradition in which the mixture of uses gives the city shape. A street, a plaza, a park are essential parts of the design. Mixed use and a new theory on centrality become determining forces.”[26] Several key projects in European cities are the physical manifestations of these investigations. Turia Gardens, located in Valencia, Spain, La Porte, located at the Kirchberg Plateau in Luxemburg and The Crescent, located on the waterfront of Salerno, Italy, are urban cores that appear modern yet maintain the Greco- Roman, mixed organization of city centralities.

The firm carries this same philosophy across continents, but infuses each locus’ native culture into its stylistic design. Tokyo's LaZona Kawazaki Plaza, is a shopping center that integrates itself with a metro hub and its clean, modern design can stylistically be seen as a reflection on the culture's fast-paced, technologically obsessed way of life. Alternatively, the New Mohammad IV Polytechnic University, expected to be completed in 2014, maintains the traditional Islamic materials, forms and decorations of Moroccan architecture, but transforms them through a progressive use of proportion and plan. This suggests the intention of the university, which fosters innovation within its own culture and people.[27]

Since the 1980s and 1990s, much of Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura's work deviates from the regional criticalism that the firm became notable for. It is a derivation from classicalism: while the focus of these buildings is on steel technology and efficiency, ell Taller maintains the use of classical proportion for each structure's composition 77 West Wacker Drive, built in 1992 and now the United Airlines Headquarters, located in Chicago, is designed to emulate a Greek temple, only stretched into the form of a skyscraper. The tower maintains all elements of a classical column—forming a base, vertical expanse and crown. Similarly, the Paris Headquarters of BNP Paribas, maintains the classical form of a temple, but is completely constructed of glass and steel.

Many of el Taller's more recent projects maintain classical proportions but emphasize cultural and functional representation, and technology. The Shiseido Headquarters, in the heart of the Ginza District, in Tokyo, is designed to be both a reflection of the brand identity and traditional Japanese construction. In Barcelona, the W Hotel Barcelona, locally known as La Vela, also mixes this diversity.

The recent completion of Terminal 1 of the Barcelona Airport, through its design and utilization of glass and steel maximizes operational and energy efficiency requisite for an international airport terminal.

While Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura works on all types of projects, from master plans to luxury residences, the core of its business and interest remains in social housing, which it continues to design across the world.[28] El Taller still employs prefabrication as a means of constructing substantial quantities of housing and continues to utilize “classical composition to resolve the monotony of pre-fabrication”, as seen in The Hague’s Monchyplein.

• Desigual Headquarters, Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 2012
• W Hotel, Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 2010
• Congress Centre Konstantinovsky, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Project 2009
• Shangrila Hotel. Beijing, China. Completed in 2008
• Funchalcentrum, Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal. Completed in 2007
• Lazona, Kawasaki Plaza, Japan. Completed in 2006
• A Coruña Convention & Exhibition Center. Spain. Completed in 2005
• Atrium Saldanha, Lisbon, Portugal. Completed in 1998
• FNAC at La Illa Diagonal, Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 1996
• Stefanel Shops, Rome, Milan, Turin, Bologna and Rimini, Italy. Completed 1994
• Madrid Congress Center, Spain. Completed in 1993
• Mercure Hotel, Montpellier, France. Completed in 1992
• United Arrows, Tokyo, Japan. Completed in 1992
• Domaine Chateau Lafite-rothschild, Pauillac, France. Completed in 1986

• Tomorrow Plaza, Shenyang, China. Projected 2013
• Karlin Hall, Prague, Czech Republic. Completed 2013
• Signature Tower III, Gurgaon, India. Projected 2012
• Corso II, Prague, Czech Republic. 2008
• La Porte, Luxembourg. Completed in 2005
• Logistics Park Office Complex, Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 2002
• Cartier Headquarters, Paris, France. Completed in 2002
• Citadel Centre, Chicago, US. Completed in 2003
• Nexus II, Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 2002
• Shiseido Building, Tokyo, Japan. Completed in 2001
• Corso Karlin, Prague, Czech Republic. Completed in 2000
• Karlin Palace, Prague, Czech Republic. Completed in 1999
• 180 North Lasalle, Chicago, US. Completed in 1999
• Casablanca Twin Center. Casablanca. Completed in 1998
• Banque Paribas, Paris, France. Completed in 1997
• AXA Headquarters, Paris, France. Completed in 1999
• Ayohama Palacio, Tokyo, Japan. Completed in 1998
• Hubber Laboratories Office Building, Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 1993
• Hotel Costes K, Paris, France. Completed in 1993
• G.A.N. Offices, Paris, France. Completed in 1992
• Christian Dior Headquarters, Paris, France. Completed in 1992
• United Building, Chicago, US. Completed in 1992
• Taller de Arquitectura Offices, Paris, France. Completed in 1991
• Decaux Offices, Paris, France. Completed in 1991
• Swift Headquarters, La Hulpe, Belgium. Completed in 1989
• Rochas Headquarters, Paris, France. Completed in 1987
• Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura Headquarters, Sant Just Desvern, Spain. Completed in 1975

• T1 at Barcelona Airport. Spain. Completed in 2009.
• Maritime Station, Savona, Italy. Completed in 2003
• Module 5 at Barcelona Airport, Spain. Completed in 2003
• Extension to Malaga Airport, Spain. Completed in 2000
• Extension to Barcelona Airport, Spain. Completed in 1992
• Bologna High Speed Station, Italy. Project 1993-1998

• Salerno Sea Front, Salerno, Italy. Projected 2014
• Moscow Agglomeration, Russia. Competition 2013
• Villareal De Santo Antonio, Portugal. Project 2011
• Bibirevo Microrayon, Moscow, Russia. Project 2009
• Barcelona New Port Mouth, Spain. Completed in 2009
• Colombo's Resort, Porto Santo Island, Portugal. Project 2001-2007
• Port of Savona, Italy. Completed 2005
• Monchyplein, The Hague, the Netherlands. Completed in 2004
• Antigone Quarter, Montpellier, France. Completed in 1999
• San Juan De Puerto Rico. Project 1999
• La Place de L’Europe, Luxembourg. Completed in 1998
• Plateau Kirchberg, Luxembourg. Completed in 1998
• Port of Kobe, Japan. Project 1991
• Boston Artery, USA. Competition 1988
• Agricultural Village Houari Boumedienne, Abadla, Algeria. Completed in 1980
• Les Halles, Paris, France. Project 1975

• University Mohammed VI, Benguerir, Morocco. Projected 2014
• Miguel Delibes Cultural Center, Valladolid. Completed in 2007
• Olympic Swimming, Montpellier, France. Completed in 1996
• National Institute for Sports and Physical Education, Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 1991
• Shepherd School of Music, Houston, US. Completed in 1991
• L’Arsenal, Metz, France. Completed in 1989
• The Sanctuary of Meritxell, Andorra. Completed in 1977
• National Theatre of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 1997

• Manzanares Park. Madrid, Spain. Completed in 2003
• L’Aire des Volcans, Clermont Ferrand, France. Completed in 1991
• Turia Gardens, Valencia, Spain. Completed in 1988
• Aiguera Park, Benidorm, Spain. Completed in 1987
• Marca Hispanica, Le Perthus, Spanish-French border. Completed in 1976

• Supershine Upper East Side, Beijing, China. Completed in 2008
• Apartment Tower, Savona, Italy. Completed in 2007
• The Reflections, Beijing, China. Completed 2007
• Monchyplein, The Hague, the Netherlands. Completed in 2004
• Platinum Tower, Beyrouth, Lebanon. Project 2003
• Maritime Front Block. Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 2002
• Weidert Housing Complex, Luxembourg. Completed in 1999
• Pa Soder Crescent, Stockholm, Sweden. Completed in 1992
• Le Port Juvenal, Montpellier, France. Completed in 1989
• Les Echelles de la Ville, Montpellier, France. Completed in 1987
• Les Temples du Lac, St. Quentin en Yvelines, France. Completed in 1986
• Les Echelles du Baroque, Paris, France. Completed in 1985
• Belvedere Saint Christophe, Ville Nouvelle de Cergy-Pontoise, France. Completed in 1985
• La Place du Nombre D’or, Montpellier, France. Completed in 1984
• La Manzanera, Calpe, Spain. Completed 1982
• Les Espaces D’abraxas, Marne-la-Vallée, France. Completed in 1982
• Les Arcades du Lac, St. Quentin en Yvelines, France. Completed in 1981
• Walden 7, Sant Just Desvern, Spain. Completed in 1974
• Barrio Gaudi, Reus, Spain. Completed in 1970
• Kafka's Castle, Sitges, Spain. Completed in 1968
• Apartment Building, Nicaragua 99, Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 1965.
• Apartment Buildings, Bach 4, Barcelona, Spain. Completed in 1965
• Apartment Building, Bach, 28, Barcelona, Spain. Completed 1963

• Headquarters of Languedoc-roussillon Government, Montpellier, France Completed in 1988