Editing Ricardo Bofill (section)

==''Taller de Arquitectura''==
{{Main|Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura}}
[[File:Ricardo Bofill (Ricard Bofill Leví), Les quatre barres de la senyera catalana 8 DSC09517.jpg|thumb|''Les quatre barres de la senyera catalana'', public sculpture by Bofill that alludes to the [[Senyera|Catalan flag]]; in front of [[W Barcelona|W Barcelona Hotel]]]]

In 1963, Bofill and a group of close friends created [[Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura]] (Ricardo Bofill Architecture Workshop), initially hosted in his father's construction business with offices on [[Plaça de Catalunya]] in the center of Barcelona. Building on Catalan traditions of craftsmanship, he enlisted architects and engineers but also writers and artists into a multidisciplinary effort, which later branched into [[urban design]] and [[urban planning]]. The team experimented on original methodologies based on three-dimensional modular geometries, such as those of the {{ill|Gaudi District|ca|Barri Gaudí (Reus)}} in [[Reus]] (1964–1970), ''[[El Castillo de Kafka]]'' in [[Sant Pere de Ribes]] above [[Sitges]] (1964–1968), ''[[Xanadu (Calp)|Xanadu]]'' (1966–1971), and ''[[La Muralla Roja]]'' (1968–1973) in [[Calp]].<ref>{{cite thesis|website=Escola Técnica i Superior d'Arquitectura La Salle - Universitat Ramon Llull |title=La Agregación Modular Como Mecanismo Proyectual Residencial en España: El Taller de Arquitectura |author=Pedro Alberto García Hernández |url=https://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/108286#page=1 |date=2013|type=Ph.D. Thesis }}</ref> The same thinking was developed on a larger scale with the project ''La Ciudad en el Espacio'' ("The City in Space"), whose construction started in the [[Moratalaz]] area of [[Madrid]] in 1970 but was abruptly stopped by Francoist mayor [[Carlos Arias Navarro]].<ref>{{cite web |website=Bitácora Arquitectura |title=La cultura de la rebelión. La ciudad en el espacio de Moratalaz. Taller de Arquitectura (1969-1970) |url=http://bitacora.arquitectura.unam.mx/la-cultura-de-la-rebelion/ |author1=Montserrat Villaverde Rey |author2=Anna Martínez Duran |date=30 November 2020 |access-date=28 February 2021 |archive-date=6 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206110724/http://bitacora.arquitectura.unam.mx/la-cultura-de-la-rebelion/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> It was instead realized with the construction of [[Walden 7]] in [[Sant Just Desvern]] near Barcelona (1970–1975). These projects were recognized as exemplars of [[critical regionalism]] and can be viewed as a reaction against both architectural modernism and the [[Francoist Spain|Francoist dictatorship]] in Spain.

Bofill then started working in France, and gradually introduced symbolic elements into the ''Taller'''s designs that echo French traditions of [[classical architecture]]. In 1971, he was invited by {{ill|Bernard Hirsch|fr}}, a key planner of the [[Cergy-Pontoise]] urban project, to develop a design concept analogous to that of the {{lang|es|Barrio Gaudí}} in Reus.{{R|A1H|page=111}} This morphed into a project named ''La Petite Cathédrale'' ("the small cathedral")<ref>{{cite web|website=Hidden Architecture |url=https://hiddenarchitecture.net/la-petite-cathedrale/ |title=La Petite Cathédrale |date=27 February 2017}}</ref> but actually intended as a large-scale development, which was approved in 1973 but canceled in 1974.{{R|A1H|pages=255-256}} Another major development was a competition-winning concept for [[Les Halles]] in Paris in 1975, whose construction subsequently started but was reversed in 1978 by the newly elected mayor [[Jacques Chirac]].<ref>{{cite web|website=Le Monde |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1978/10/27/m-chirac-fait-interrompre-la-construction-de-l-immeuble-bofill_2975760_1819218.html |title=M. Chirac fait interrompre la construction de l'immeuble Bofill |author=Michèle Champenois |date=27 October 1978}}</ref> Other projects did come to fruition in the ''{{ill|Villes nouvelles (France){{!}}villes nouvelles|fr|Politique des villes nouvelles françaises}}'' around Paris which offered a favorable environment for large-scale experimentation, including ''[[Les Espaces d'Abraxas]]'' in [[Marne-la-Vallée]] and ''[[Les Arcades du Lac]]'' in [[Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines]]. This phase culminated in the expansive [[Antigone, Montpellier|Antigone]] new district of [[Montpellier]] in Southern France, for which Bofill presented the initial master plan in 1978.<ref>{{cite web|website=Association Georges Frêche |title=Antigone : Ricardo Bofill présente le projet |url=http://www.georgesfreche-lassociation.fr/media/antigone-ricardo-bofill-presente-le-projet.html}}</ref> It is associated with both large-scale industrialization in [[precast concrete]] and classical forms and geometries in contemporary architecture, which Bofill called "modern classicism". As a consequence, Bofill opus is often cited as that one of the most representative and signififant [[Postmodern architecture|postmodern architects]] to have lived and created in Europe.<ref>{{cite web|website=Architectural Digest |title=Discover the Surreal Architecture of Postmodernist Ricardo Bofill |url=https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/ricardo-bofill-architecture |author=Stefanie Waldek |date=5 March 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|website=Newsweek |title=Dreams and Manifestos: The Architectural Vision of Ricardo Bofill |url=https://www.newsweek.com/dreams-manifestos-architectural-vision-ricardo-bofill-1420288 |author=Tom Morris |date=14 May 2019}}</ref>

From the mid-1980s on, he increasingly shifted to glass and steel for the materials used in his projects, while still using a classical vocabulary of columns and [[pediment]]s. Representative projects of that period include the [[77 West Wacker Drive]] office tower in [[Chicago]], the extension of [[Josep Tarradellas Barcelona–El Prat Airport|Barcelona Airport]] ahead of the [[1992 Summer Olympics]], and the [[Teatre Nacional de Catalunya|National Theater of Catalonia]], also in Barcelona.

In 2000, Bofill re-centralized the activities of the ''Taller'' at its [[La Fábrica (Sant Just Desvern)|head office]] near Barcelona. His designs in more recent years gradually shed his classical decorative vocabulary of the 1980s and 1990s, while retaining a highly formal sense of geometry. Representative buildings of this more recent period include the [[W Barcelona|W Barcelona Hotel]] on the Barcelona seafront and the [[Mohammed VI Polytechnic University]] in [[Ben Guerir]], [[Morocco]].