Studio Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura (RBTA) just announced the sad news that their founder has passed away at the age of 82.
Ricardo Bofill’s postmodern architecture seems to age like fine wine. His extremely instagrammable colorful architecture recently attracted attention by being a clear inspiration for the stairwell sequences in the celebrated Netflix series Squid Game.
Arguably his best known work is La Fabrica. In 1973 Ricardo Bofill found a disused cement factory, an industrial complex from the turn of the century consisting of over 30 silos, subterranean galleries and huge machine rooms, and he decided to transform it into the head office of Taller de Arquitectura. Remodelling work lasted two years.
Today, the complex stands in the midst of gardens with eucalyptus, palms, olive trees and cypresses as evidence that an imaginative architect can adapt any space to a new function, no matter how different it may be from the original one.
With over a thousand projects in forty countries, Bofill is known for large scale housing projects like the brightly colored La Muralla Roja housing estate, Walden 7 and Xanadú.
