| Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura |
Ricardo Bofill by himself |
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There are some of the philosophies and general principles which have guided the trajectory of my team in the Taller de Arquitectura, since the sixties to the present time.  I am a nomad, I am still a nomad, a traveller without port, required to establish reference points according to my journey. I was born in Barcelona, my father was catalan and my mother from Venice, I am at the crossroads of two cultures that clashed and melted throughout history. In my early years I crossed the straights of Gibraltar, going south, and discovered in the valley of Draa villages built with cubes, piled up and constructed according to the families´ rhythm of growth, and despite that, strangely well-ordered, organic, profoundly architectural. All around, the desert; the fantastic shapes of dunes, constantly transformed by strong winds that appeared before me as essential elements, beyond anything that we can draw. The rose sands of the Teneré desert, outlined against the indigo sky, the endless spaces of rocks and stones, were my initiation to absolute beauty. In the desert I met the nomads, the blue men of the Sahara, people that belong to an ancient civilization. I discovered that they understood the abstract concept of space better than anybody and we became best friends. To be an architect means to understand space, to understand space organized by man, to decipher the spontaneous movements and behaviour of people, and to detect the needs of change that they might unconsciously express. It is essential to track down these issues if we want to contribute with our personal work to the history of architecture.  |
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