{"id":4844,"date":"2022-12-27T09:55:36","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T08:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.petruccimarco.it\/en\/?p=4844"},"modified":"2025-11-15T11:34:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T10:34:23","slug":"great-masters-ricardo-bofill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petruccimarco.it\/en\/great-masters-ricardo-bofill\/","title":{"rendered":"Ricardo Bofill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ricardo<\/p>\n

Great Masters | Ricardo Bofill<\/h1>\n

Ricardo Bofill (portrait)<\/p>\n

\"Architecture must be specific to each place\". Ricardo Bofill<\/p>\n

His architect father directly involves him in his projects and construction processes. Together they travelled to Italy and Spain to study vernacular architecture. He graduated in 1959 in architecture from the School of Fine Arts in Geneva. Ricardo Bofill opened his own studio in the 1960s, when he was only 23 years old. He designs buildings, structures and parks all over the world: from the National Theatre in Catalonia to the Manzanares Park in Madrid, from the Crescent in Salerno to the Palacrociere in Savona with sensitivity to both interior and exterior lighting. The Ricardo Bofill<\/a><\/span> Taller de Arquitectura (RBTA) is based in a cement factory, La Fabrica in Barcelona. It brings together architects, urban planners, graphic designers and economists from more than twenty countries with a thousand projects in forty countries around the world. \"The factory reminded me of vernacular architecture. It was the industrial vernacular that attracted me. Also there were so many surreal moments like stairs and bridges that went nowhere and arches and arcades in the most unexpected places (...).\" (1)<\/p>\n

In an interview by Vladimir Belogolovsky to the question: \"I read that you employ here not only architects and designers but also mathematicians, musicians, poets, filmmakers, philosophers, sociologists ... Could you talk about this interdisciplinary approach to architecture?\"<\/p>\n

Ricardo Bofill replies: \"Architecture is a professional discipline. Fundamentally and artistically, architecture is about space and the relationship between time and space. Architecture must have a relationship to the genius loci of each place. In other words, to its spirit and DNA. Architecture cannot be translated from one place to another. Architecture should be specific to each place. So what I try to do with this multidisciplinary approach is always to invent new projects, new styles. I want to reinvent myself. I don't want to copy myself or repeat endless forms, like some other architects. I want to adapt to local conditions and traditions. Architecture must be open to other disciplines. Architecture cannot be isolated. And since all other disciplines evolve, architecture should maintain a close relationship with them in order to evolve\u201d. (1)<\/p>\n

With his designs, Ricardo Bofill creates a visionary world with bright Mediterranean colours, labyrinthine volumes and forms that distance themselves from the rigid functionalism of the Modern Movement, combining ideal tension and architectural invention. His career developed on the echo of history, memory and landscapes seen in his nomadic life \"I learnt more in the Sahara than in a French palace\". \"The world is complex and multiform: different cultures can coexist in the same place\". (2)<\/p>\n

Light and Architecture<\/h2>\n

Architect Piero Castiglioni meets architect Ricardo Bofill during the opening of the Mus\u00e9e d'Orsay (a great school for the master of light in museum lighting design<\/a><\/span>) in Paris.\u00a0 Thus began the collaboration between the two professionals. In 1987, architect and urban planner Ricardo Bofill asked lighting designer<\/a><\/span> Piero Castiglioni for advice on architectural lighting of the former arsenal auditorium in Metz, France. This was the beginning of a collaboration. In particular, there are projects where the lighting design part sees the two great masters designing together.<\/p>\n