Architect, Spain
Ricardo Bofill is one of Europe’s most prolific and provocative exponents of
Postmodernism in architecture.
In 1975 French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing described Bofill as the “world’s
greatest architect” for his award-winning design for Les Halles in Paris. In the following
decade, a series of international exhibitions and monographs confirmed his position at the
forefront of the modern classical revival. However, despite being celebrated for the
manner in which he has rejuvenated the classical and baroque traditions in architecture, it
is also an appreciation of geometry and the interrelation among social, spatial, and
technical systems that define his work.
Bofill was born in Barcelona in 1939, and between 1955 and 1960 he studied at the
Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura in Barcelona and the Université de Genève in
Switzerland. In 1960 he founded the multidisciplinary team Taller de Arquitectura (Architecture Workshop),
and since that time he has worked with them in close collaboration on all his designs.
Bofill and the Taller have been based in Barcelona and Sant Just Desvern in Spain since
that period, but they have also opened offices in Paris, Algeria, and New York.
Bofill describes both his childhood in Catalonia and his travels with his family as
being strong influences on his architectural career. It was while growing up in Barcelona
that he developed a great fascination for the architecture of Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926)
and for traditional Catalan craftsmanship. During his later travels throughout Western
Europe and North Africa, he also cultivated an interest in the manner in which spaces
shape social interaction. All of these themes suffuse his early architectural works,
including the Plaza San Gregorio Apartment Building (1965) and the Nicaragua
Apartment Building (1965) in Barcelona, as well as the Barrio Gaudí (1968) in Reus. All
three of the buildings are constructed of simple industrial materials that are applied in
traditional ways, and all feature elaborate, variegated roofscapes and richly textured and
decorated facades.
Bofill’s work first came to international prominence in the early 1970s, when the Taller de Arquitectura
produced a series of brightly colored, and enigmatically titled buildings throughout
Spain. All these projects, including Xanadu (1967) on the bay of Sitges, Walden-7 (1975)
in Sant Just Desvern, and Kafka’s Castle (1968) and Red Wall (1972), both in Alicante,
display a similar theme; they share a preoccupation with the manner in which geometric
systems can generate forms that are complex yet conducive to social interaction. Kafka’s
Castle is a resort, and is generated from a series of equations that govern the siting and
distribution of cubic rooms and castellated balconies. One equation generates the number
of room capsules that plug into the stair towers, and another determines the height of each
spiral progression around the stair. Rather than resulting in a bland or repetitive building,
the overlaying of these simple geometric rules produces a rich and evocative
environment. In Walden-7, a monumental 17-story apartment complex, this same method
is used to accommodate different-sized groups of people in cellular spaces. Both of these
flexible-use living areas are connected by vast atriums, upper-level bridges, and roof
gardens. Bofill describes these early works as being an intuitive response to issues of
design and local culture that have since been termed critical regionalism. For Bofill such
Entries A–F 279
projects attempt to solve modern problems (mass housing) using modern materials, while
retaining some essence of the region’s natural complexity. However, in the years that
followed, Bofill began to gradually revise this approach to design, arguing that it was
becoming increasingly important to express historical and regional characteristics as well
as geometric ones.
In 1975 Bofill’s design for a large public park ringed by baroque
colonnades won the international design competition for Les Halles in
Paris. The design was already under construction when the mayor of Paris,
Jacques Chirac, ordered that it be abandoned. Despite this setback, Bofill
successfully developed a number of similarly monumental and historically
themed projects in France, including Les Arcades du Lac (1981) and Le
Viaduc (1981), both near Versailles, Les Espaces d’Abraxas (1983) at
Marne-la-Vallée, Les Echelles du Baroque (1985) in Paris, and Antigone
(1985) in Montpellier. Bofill describes Les Arcades du Lac and Le Viaduc
as “Versailles for the people.” These buildings (the latter over an artificial
lake) incorporate a giant rhythmic system of precast-concrete pilasters,
arched windows, and classical pediments. Below the symmetrical piazza
with its classical fountains and balustrades, are cavernous parking lots. Les
Espaces d’Abraxas, a development for more than 600 apartments on the
outskirts of Paris, is similarly boldly derivative of French architectural
history and geometry. Les Espaces d’Abraxas comprises three historic
building types: a semicircular theater, an arc (a habitable arch), and the
palace (a U-shaped block that frames the arc). Each of these buildings is
between 10 and 15 stories high and is clad in an elegant, precast-concrete
panel system. The exterior of the theater features a series of gigantic Doric columns, each the full height of the building. The inner courtyards are
lined with mirror-glass Corinthian columns, each surmounted by a triple molding
(actually a series of balconies) and a cypress tree. These buildings, along with Les
Echelles du Baroque and Antigone, confirmed Bofill’s reputation as designer of
extravagant, monumental, and theatrical buildings.
In the 1990s Bofill and the Taller continued to design buildings for clients in the
United States, China, and Europe, despite society’s growing rejection of the exuberance
of Postmodern classicism.
By the time that Bofill’s designs for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics were completed,
the approach to architecture that had once earned him great praise, now drew mostly
criticism. Despite this rejection, it is Bofill’s appreciation of the relationship among
geometry, space, and society that remains his greatest strength.
Lina Bò Bardi
Architect, Brazil
Lina Bò Bardi was born in Rome, Italy, in 1914 and died in São Paolo, Brazil, in
1992. She was among the most prolific women architects of the 20th century. She was
also a noted designer of furniture, jewelry, staging and installations, as well as an
architectural writer and editor. Bò Bardi emerged at an early age as strong willed and
unconventional and was one of a handful of women to study in the College of
Entries A–F 275
Architecture at Rome University in the late 1930s. Her graduation project revealed her
nonconformist bent. The project was in a modern style and was at odds with the
historicism of her teachers Marcello Piacentini and Gustavo Giovannoni; it was a largescale
maternity hospital for unwed mothers, and was an unusual choice of topic in the
family-oriented society of prewar Italy.
On graduation, Bò Bardi left for Milan and worked for the modernist architect and
designer Gio Ponti. Ponti was the director of the Triennale of Milan and of the
architecture and design magazine Domus , both major platforms for Italian modern architecture
and industrial design. At the same time, Bò Bardi, at the age of 24, opened her own onewoman
architectural office, supporting herself as an illustrator for Stile, a woman’s fashion
magazine. In 1943 when Italy went to war, at the age of 25, she accepted the position of
codirector of Do mus and was also a member of the Italian resistance. After the war, in 1946, she
founded the famous A, Cultu ra della Vita with Bruno Zevi, and married the art critic Pietro Bardi. Because
she had been a wartime supporter of Benito Mussolini, Bò Bardi would have had a
difficult professional life in Italy. Hence, the couple left for Brazil in 1947, and jointly
founded the celebrated art magazine Habitat. Bò Bardi, then 29, again opened an architectural
firm, and remained in active practice until the end of her life.
Bò Bardi’s architecture is characterized by its often-daring, concrete
construction engineered in pursuit of Miesian-inspired universal spaces.
The Glass House (1951), which she designed for herself and Bardi just
outside São Paolo, juts out from the top of a steeply inclined site and is
screened by the surrounding tropical forest. It is an early example of the
use of reinforced concrete and glass for a domestic building. Despite its
formidable weight, it achieves an effect of airy lightness using just seven
slender columns that support the structure. Her scheme for the Taba
Guaianases Building, commissioned for the media conglomerate Diarios
Associados in São Paolo (1951, never completed), represented yet another
technical feat. The main issue in the scheme was technical: how to place a
building of 1,500 apartments on top of a large theater with 1,500 seats,
remaining free of columns. She collaborated on the structural engineering
with the famed Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi. One of her most famous
buildings, the Museum of São Paulo (1957–68), is a 70-meter-long glazed
structure, suspended from two prestressed longitudinal concrete beams on
the roof, resting on four pillars with a clear span under it. The exhibition
hall thus created is an immense universal space, unencumbered by
structural elements; the immense resulting space under the building
(named the Belvedere because of the view it affords over São Paolo)
became one of the most popular public places in the city. With its use of
concrete construction and search for universal space, it recalls her
uncompleted Museum on the Seashore (1951) in São Paolo. Bò Bardi’s
second most famous project, the Pompéia Factory (1977) in São Paolo,
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 276
converted an abandoned steeldrum factory into a cultural and recreational
center. She qualified this low-cost project as Arquitetura Povera, inspired
by the art movement in Italy during the 1960s, called Arte Povera
(literally, poor art). Located in a 19th-century industrial complex, it exploits rather than rejects the gritty realism of the site. The two concrete high-rise
structures that she added to the complex are reminiscent of silos, bunkers, or containers,
with a series of seven prestressed-concrete walkways linking them. It contains a
swimming pool, gymnasium, studios for arts and crafts, a dance hall, and a theater for
1,200 spectators, a library, a restaurant, and exhibition halls.
Bò Bardi also built or designed many small domestic buildings in a critical regionalist
spirit, incorporating tropical vegetation into the concrete construction in novel ways: her
Chame-Chame House (1958) in Bahia preserves a Jaca tree at the center of the design
and, as in her home for Valeria P.Cirell (1958) in São Paolo, combines stones, ceramic
chips, and plants in the wall slabs creating vertical garden walls. She was also involved in
many renovation projects: Solar do Unhao (1963) in Bahia, the Historical Center of Bahia
(1986), the House of Benin (1987) in Bahia, and Misericórdia Slope (1987) in Bahia.
Moreover, she designed furniture; the most famous example is a classic of postwar
furniture design, a chair called “Bardi’s Bowl” (1951). Much like her early buildings, it is
an exercise in structural thinking. In the form of a mobile hemispherical bowl, it rests on
a light steel structure made up of a circular ring supported on four thin legs.
Bò Bardi’s last project was for the conversion of the old Palace of Industries of São
Paolo into the new City Hall (1992).
Lina Bò Bardi was born in Rome, Italy, in 1914 and died in São Paolo, Brazil, in
1992. She was among the most prolific women architects of the 20th century. She was
also a noted designer of furniture, jewelry, staging and installations, as well as an
architectural writer and editor. Bò Bardi emerged at an early age as strong willed and
unconventional and was one of a handful of women to study in the College of
Entries A–F 275
Architecture at Rome University in the late 1930s. Her graduation project revealed her
nonconformist bent. The project was in a modern style and was at odds with the
historicism of her teachers Marcello Piacentini and Gustavo Giovannoni; it was a largescale
maternity hospital for unwed mothers, and was an unusual choice of topic in the
family-oriented society of prewar Italy.
On graduation, Bò Bardi left for Milan and worked for the modernist architect and
designer Gio Ponti. Ponti was the director of the Triennale of Milan and of the
architecture and design magazine Domus , both major platforms for Italian modern architecture
and industrial design. At the same time, Bò Bardi, at the age of 24, opened her own onewoman
architectural office, supporting herself as an illustrator for Stile, a woman’s fashion
magazine. In 1943 when Italy went to war, at the age of 25, she accepted the position of
codirector of Do mus and was also a member of the Italian resistance. After the war, in 1946, she
founded the famous A, Cultu ra della Vita with Bruno Zevi, and married the art critic Pietro Bardi. Because
she had been a wartime supporter of Benito Mussolini, Bò Bardi would have had a
difficult professional life in Italy. Hence, the couple left for Brazil in 1947, and jointly
founded the celebrated art magazine Habitat. Bò Bardi, then 29, again opened an architectural
firm, and remained in active practice until the end of her life.
Bò Bardi’s architecture is characterized by its often-daring, concrete
construction engineered in pursuit of Miesian-inspired universal spaces.
The Glass House (1951), which she designed for herself and Bardi just
outside São Paolo, juts out from the top of a steeply inclined site and is
screened by the surrounding tropical forest. It is an early example of the
use of reinforced concrete and glass for a domestic building. Despite its
formidable weight, it achieves an effect of airy lightness using just seven
slender columns that support the structure. Her scheme for the Taba
Guaianases Building, commissioned for the media conglomerate Diarios
Associados in São Paolo (1951, never completed), represented yet another
technical feat. The main issue in the scheme was technical: how to place a
building of 1,500 apartments on top of a large theater with 1,500 seats,
remaining free of columns. She collaborated on the structural engineering
with the famed Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi. One of her most famous
buildings, the Museum of São Paulo (1957–68), is a 70-meter-long glazed
structure, suspended from two prestressed longitudinal concrete beams on
the roof, resting on four pillars with a clear span under it. The exhibition
hall thus created is an immense universal space, unencumbered by
structural elements; the immense resulting space under the building
(named the Belvedere because of the view it affords over São Paolo)
became one of the most popular public places in the city. With its use of
concrete construction and search for universal space, it recalls her
uncompleted Museum on the Seashore (1951) in São Paolo. Bò Bardi’s
second most famous project, the Pompéia Factory (1977) in São Paolo,
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 276
converted an abandoned steeldrum factory into a cultural and recreational
center. She qualified this low-cost project as Arquitetura Povera, inspired
by the art movement in Italy during the 1960s, called Arte Povera
(literally, poor art). Located in a 19th-century industrial complex, it exploits rather than rejects the gritty realism of the site. The two concrete high-rise
structures that she added to the complex are reminiscent of silos, bunkers, or containers,
with a series of seven prestressed-concrete walkways linking them. It contains a
swimming pool, gymnasium, studios for arts and crafts, a dance hall, and a theater for
1,200 spectators, a library, a restaurant, and exhibition halls.
Bò Bardi also built or designed many small domestic buildings in a critical regionalist
spirit, incorporating tropical vegetation into the concrete construction in novel ways: her
Chame-Chame House (1958) in Bahia preserves a Jaca tree at the center of the design
and, as in her home for Valeria P.Cirell (1958) in São Paolo, combines stones, ceramic
chips, and plants in the wall slabs creating vertical garden walls. She was also involved in
many renovation projects: Solar do Unhao (1963) in Bahia, the Historical Center of Bahia
(1986), the House of Benin (1987) in Bahia, and Misericórdia Slope (1987) in Bahia.
Moreover, she designed furniture; the most famous example is a classic of postwar
furniture design, a chair called “Bardi’s Bowl” (1951). Much like her early buildings, it is
an exercise in structural thinking. In the form of a mobile hemispherical bowl, it rests on
a light steel structure made up of a circular ring supported on four thin legs.
Bò Bardi’s last project was for the conversion of the old Palace of Industries of São
Paolo into the new City Hall (1992).
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