Ricardo Bofill

Ricardo Bofill Levi
Born 5 December 1939 (1939-12-05) (age 72)
Barcelona, Spain
Nationality Spanish
Awards Vittorio de Sica Architecture Prize, Life Time Achievement Award. The Israelí Building Center, Chicago Architecture Award, Illinois Council/American Institute of Architects/Architectural Record, Awarded Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Degree, Ministry of Culture France
Work
Projects Terminal 1 at Barcelona Airport, Sunshine Upper East (Beijing, China), Paribas Marché Saint Honoré (Paris), Antigone Quarter(Montpellier), Swift Headquarters. La Hulpe (Belgium), United Airlines Tower (Chicago), Ginza Shiseido Building (Tokio), La Paix Residentiel (Dakar, Senegal), Port of Savona (Italy), Walden 7 (Sant Just Desvern, Barcelona)

Ricardo Bofill, also Ricard Bofill Leví (Catalan pronunciation: [riˈkard buˈfiʎ ɫəˈβi]) (born in Barcelona, Spain, December 5, 1939) is a Catalan[1] Spanish[2] postmodernist[3] architect.

He studied at the School of Architecture in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1963, he founded a group formed by architects, engineers, sociologists and philosophers, creating the basis for what today is the ‘Taller de Arquitectura’, international team with over 40 years experience in urban design, architecture, parks and gardens designs, and interior design.

Contents

Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura

Ricardo Bofill - Taller de Arquitectura is a prominent international studio for architecture, planning and design. Its main office in Barcelona was founded in 1963 by Spanish-Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill.

Organization

The office is led by Ricardo Bofill and two partners, Peter Hodgkinson and Jean-Pierre Carniaux. As of 2011, it employs a staff of around 60 of 12 nationalities, including urban planners, architects, researchers, designers, model makers, interior and industrial designers and graphic designers working in close collaboration.

Urban Design

Major urban design projects by Ricardo Bofill - Taller de Arquitectura include Place de l’Europe (Luxembourg), Nova Karlin (Prague), Port Praski (Warsaw), New Castellana (Madrid), Tarragona’s new seafront, Nova Bocana (Barcelona), Puerto Triana (Seville), Central Artery (Boston) and the remodelling of Kobe in Japan. Antigone in Montpellier, France (4 million square feet built) is an entire neighbourhood that has been designed and constructed by Taller de Arquitectura during twenty years.

These projects are typically predicated on the assertion that the city should be formed by streets and squares, in opposition to the model adopted in the construction of isolated blocks separated by extensive open spaces. The underlying model is that of a sustainable Mediterranean city with well-defined public spaces, and in which inhabitants have all the basic services within reasonable walking distance of their homes.

Large Public Buildings

In the field of large transport infrastructures, Taller de Arquitectura designed the 1991 extension and remodelling of Barcelona Airport (now known as Terminal 2) as well as its more recent extension, Terminal 1, completed in 2010 and awarded 2011 Best Airport Southern Europe. Other prominent public projects include the National Theatre of Catalonia in Barcelona, Madrid Congress Centre, the Arsenal Auditorium in Metz (France), the Shepherd School of Music for Rice University in Houston, the Villa Cultural del Prado in Valladolid, and the Convention and Exhibition Centre in A Coruña.

Hotels and Retail

Five-stars hotels designed by the Taller include Beijing’s Shangri-la Hotel, the Costes K in Paris, Colombo’s Resort in Porto Santo, Portugal, and more recently the W Barcelona. The Taller has also completed successful retail projects including Atrium Saldanha in Lisbon, the mall Lazona Kawasaki Plaza in Tokyo and Funchalcentrum (Portugal).

Housing Projects

Taller de Arquitectura is unusual among prominent global architecture firms for its longstanding focus on large housing projects, including some for lower-income families. It has designed more than 2,000 housing units in France, 1,500 in Spain, 400 in Sweden, 350 in the Netherlands, including in the Parisian Villes Nouvelles as Les Espaces d’Abraxas in Marne-la-Vallée, Les Arcades du Lac in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Le Belvedere St. Christophe in Cergy-Pontoise, Les Echelles du Baroque in Paris, Monchyplein in The Hague, the project Pa Soder Crescent, also known as Bofill's bage, in Stockholm, and more recently mixed-use projects in Savona (Italy).

The design studies for precast concrete units or for the moulds for in situ shuttering, prompted by the need to obtain a large number of different forms from the combination of a very limited number of units contributed, in the 1980s, to the Taller’s affirmation of the validity of classical forms and geometry in contemporary architecture.

Landscape

From “garden cities”, to large urban green areas that become the back-bone of cities, Taller de Arquitectura has created more than 100 designs for parks from Puerto Rico to Beijing. Many landscape projects designed by the Taller involve the presence of the river: the Turia gardens built on Valencia’s riverbed, the landscaping of the Lez river banks in Montpellier, the Manzanares Park in Madrid…

Urban Impact

Many of the Taller projects have become familiar and symbolic landmarks in their respective locations. However at the time of their creation they sometimes have appeared radical, stirring occasional controversy.

Partial list of Bofill projects

Bibliography

Main Exhibitions

Films

Films directed and produced by Ricardo Bofill[11]

"Circles", 1968

Technical Information
• Color, 35 mm
• Runtime: 17 minutes
• Director: Ricardo Bofill
• Co-director: Carles Durán
• Actors: Serena Vergano, Salvador Clotas
• Phography: Juan Amorós
Presented at Festival de Tours, France, 1968

"Schizo", 1970

Technical Information • Color, 35 mm
• Runtime: 60 minutes
• Director: Ricardo Bofill
• Co-director: Carles Durán, Manolo Núñez Yanosvski
• Actors: Serena Vergano, Modesto Bertrán
• Phography: Juan Amorós
• Coreography: Antonio Miralles
Presented at 48 Mostra Cinematografica Internazionale di Venezia, Sala Volpi, 1991.

Presented in a museum space for the first time as part of the exhibition Subversive Practices, this work has remained virtually unknown, with few public screenings, for almost forty years. Its original subtitle - A Fictitious Report on the Architecture of the Brain – does not just refer to the process-based methodology characteristics of conceptual practices and “information art” but also indicates the type of activities carried out by the Taller de Arquitectura. This multidisciplinary platform was created in 1960 by Ricardo Bofill.[12] Its collaborators included poets such as José Agustín Goytisolo, politicians like Salvador Clotas, artists like Daniel Argimon and Joan Ponç, actresses like Serena Vergano, and, lastly, architects such as Anna Bofill, Peter H. Hodgkinson, Ramón Collado, Xavier Bagué, and Manuel Nuñez Yanovsky .The film is a study of the relationship between art and madness and describes the horror of the human condition – a mere instant between nothingness and nothingness. The piece is an experimental documentary on the structure of a brain, reflecting the disquiet of an artist and his distorted vision of the world.

See also

References

  1. ^ List of important Catalan people
  2. ^ Spanish Architecture
  3. ^ Manifestations of Postmodernism, postmodernism in architecture
  4. ^ Architecture of Chicago
  5. ^ Fernando Marza and Neus Moyano titled “Walden 7: Taller de Arquitectura” in Quaderns d’Arquitectura i Urbanisme (Dec.2004); BCN, pp. 18-53
  6. ^ Museum of Modern Art. Ricardo Bofill and Leon Krier: Architecture, Urbanism, and History
  7. ^ Ricardo Bofill and Leon Krier Architecture Urbanism and history
  8. ^ Catalogue has been published to coincide with the exhibition of drawings at the Architectural Association, London, from 16 January to 14 February 1981
  9. ^ Catalogue of drawings at Architectural Association
  10. ^ Architectural Association
  11. ^ Barcelona School of Film
  12. ^ Brilliant Future

External links

Gallery