Approach
General approach
The specific design methodology, applied and formalized by the team over the last 50 years, focuses on dialogue between the architect, local developers and local teams. Bofill defends the importance of involving all participants throughout the entire process, from the first sketches to the construction of the project. The work of El Taller is defined by the needs and desires of its inhabitants and users. This particular approach allows the members of El Taller to approach all projects, both private domestic-scale projects and large-scale urban projects, with the same rigor.[12].
A constant in the projects of Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura, regardless of their location, decade or typology - is what the company calls 'Memory-Future.' The design of these spaces combines retrospection and prospection—Memory—Future.”[11].
The use of a historical perspective in all its projects allows the team to deepen the analysis and continuous interpretation of local cultures and their architectural heritage. Contrary to Socialist and Corbusian planning models (Le Corbusier), Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura defends the Mediterranean city model. This model, defined by a network of public spaces, proportionally connects streets and squares.[13] “The Mediterranean City” is also an interregional synthesis, a region of interrelating regions. The profound cultural, social and material interactions underline the cosmopolitan dimension of the Mediterranean.”[14].
In his book "Space and Life" Ricardo Bofill states, "it is essential to recover the discipline developed during the Renaissance—urban design. Personally, I defend a strategy of properly planned, controlled, organized urban growth (...) my work has always been guided by the same principles—projecting a city in accordance with the ideas of Ildefonso Cerdá, the engineer who designed the magnificent plot of the Barcelona district known as the Eixample. Urban extension must have its limits; its linear growth should not serve to annex other cities. Urban design should be reintroduced into existing districts, preserving and renewing certain areas, to turn them into authentic communities with streets, squares and urban facades.”[15].
The recurring idea of the mixture of functions in the city and which translates into what the team calls “integrated urbanism”, confirms the strong conviction of the members of El Taller that a city belongs to and should be shared in the same way by all socio-economic classes.
60s to 70s (Critical Regionalism)
El Taller's first works are inspired by vernacular architecture and traditional Catalan architecture, as manifested in the Bofill residence project in Ibiza, a single-family house by the sea that uses local materials and construction systems. This architectural strategy applies a geometric logic aimed at the organization of elements in space. Initially developed theoretically in The City in Space project, the formal approach was manifested concretely in 1975 with the construction of the Walden 7 social housing project. This apartment complex distributes 446 residential units over 14 floors, maximizing both scale and structural complexity. In an article for Architectural Design, Vincent Scully described Walden 7 as a wildly expressionist apartment building, part Gaudí, part Archigram.[16] The repetition of modules in the space, with private micro terraces connected by public patios, marked the rethinking of social housing.
Kafka Castle built in 1968, is located in San Pedro de Ribas, Spain. The project is a tribute to Franz Kafka. Beyond a development on the land, the plan and the context, Bofill implemented a series of mathematical equations that generated the distribution of the 90 apartments, as well as the location of the building. Despite this, Kafka's Castle shares some programmatic similarities with typical Spanish apartment buildings. The prefabricated cubes are assembled based on two mathematical equations that generate their position in relation to the vertical circulation cores. Muralla Roja "Muralla Roja (Calpe)"), built in 1973, the project develops the team's studies on the organic manifestation of the form, the imposition of criteria and conditions defined by the place. Color defines each of the structural functions, serving as tectonic place finders for this labyrinthine building. Despite its constructivist aesthetic, The Red Wall is a clear reference to Mediterranean architectural roots, especially the adobe towers of North Africa and the Kasbah.
The experimental Xanadu prototype reflects the theory developed by the garden city team in space. The building recreates the shape of the Peñón de Ifach that can be seen from its windows.[17] Its design incorporates details of local vernacular architecture in its curved railings, in the roof elements, combining modern principles with a traditional aesthetic.[18].
In the early 1970s, El Taller began its collaboration with the Government of Algeria on issues related to urban planning and housing. This first collaboration culminated two years later with the construction of the Houari Boumédienne Agricultural Village housing project in the southeast of the country.
70s to 80s (Modern Classicism)
At the same time as the teams from Spain and Algeria, in 1971 a team was consolidated in Paris to project the new cities ("Villes Nouvelles").[19] It was then that the company's headquarters moved to Paris, to concentrate on the industrialized construction of social housing and urban design. During that period El Taller incorporated symbolic elements with clear references to French monumental architecture in all its urban projects. Bofill considered the need to design a type of permanent and integral façade with pilasters, pediments, cornices and balustrades.[20].
In the book Memory-Future, El Taller justifies the use of classical proportions and forms by the possibility it offers to delve deeper into the articulation between historical memory and creative freedom. With this objective, he has created a manual, a grammar and a language applied to architectural composition, "rewriting" the classical vocabulary of the West.[11].
The urban housing proposals, La Petite Cathédrale and Les Espaces D’ Abraxas, represent the compendium of ideas about social housing integrated into these inhabited monuments. Les Espaces d'Abraxas") also explores the manipulation of classical forms of architecture.[21].
The simultaneous construction of four REF projects – 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 – marks one of The Taller's prolific periods. Built over two decades, the Antigone district in Montpellier includes 400,000 m² built divided into different uses. The large-scale masterplan is typically Mediterranean. “Using classical architecture to give it a human scale and proportions, Antigone aims to break the monotony of prefabricated construction to generate a “palace for the people”. The project rethinks and reconstitutes the classical language applied to modern industrial construction techniques with architectural concrete, assembled piece by piece in a harmonious but at the same time systematic way than in ancient classical buildings.”[22].
From the 90s to the present (Integrated Urban Planning)
Ricardo Bofill explains that his team's work is based both "on a Mediterranean model and a European urbanism of urban continuity and on the American urban model built from separate pieces, as well as on the result of the combination of both. At the same time, El Taller has been able to overcome the scale of the neighborhood to expand it to the scale of the city. Each city, like each individual, has its own identity and personality: this is the main element that defines its own urban project."[11].
The Workshop works with municipal officials, with the authorities of each country and with private developers to help rethink the growth of the city through urban planning. Specifically, El Taller participated in competitions to carry out masterplans such as the Boston Central Artery, the result of the “Big Dig”; in 2012 Moscow Agglomeration's Extension, a project that proposed moving ministries outside the Kremlin and doubling the size of the city; recently “Dallas’ Connected City Design Challenge”, which aims to regenerate the center of the city of Dallas and connect it with the Trinity River Park.
Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura uses urban design as the "instrument for spatial organization in accordance with the great Italian and French classical tradition, where the mixture of functions generates the form of the city. A street, a square, a park, are essential elements of the project. The mixture of functions and a new theory on centrality are determinants in the urban design of El Taller."[11] Significant projects in European cities are the physical expression of these studies. The Turia Gardens in Valencia, Spain La Porte, located on the Plateau Kirchberg in Luxembourg, and El Crescent, on the seafront in Salerno, Italy, are modern urban centers with the classic mix-of-function scheme of Greco-Roman cities.
The team applies this same philosophy on all continents, but its design is inspired by the genius loci of local culture. In Tokyo, it is a shopping center that incorporates a subway station with an interchange. Its refined and modern design is a stylistic reflection of the country's rapid cultural development and its inhabitants' obsession with technology. As a counterpoint, the project for the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University recovers the traditional materials of Islamic architecture, forms and decorative elements of the Moroccan tradition, but transforms them through a modern project in its proportions and distribution of the program. The design of this university facility highlights its vocation to promote innovation within its own culture and society.[23].
Since the 80s and 90s, much of the work of Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura distances itself from the Critical Regionalism for which the company became known. Despite the use of modern systems and materials and the application of efficiency criteria in its projects, El Taller maintains the use of classic proportions in the composition.