The organisation of residential space is of central significance
for a big city. The escape into the surrounding countryside is
only an apparent solution if it results merely in faceless and
badly-connected residential machinery. During the 1970s,
inspired by the visionary architecture of the English group
Archigram, Ricardo Bofill and the Taller de Arquitectura looked
for new ways of solving one of the most urgent problems facing
urban development. One solution is the building on the left of
the motorway to Sitges, perched up on a hill and resembling a
futuristic fortress. Cubes nesting inside each other and partly
equipped with battlements form a highly complex structure, named
"El Castell" after The Castle by Franz Kafka. The combination
possibilities of these cubes, each of which contains a room,
seem inexhaustible. The other side of the structure is
surprisingly peaceful: a blue swimming pool set in red, dark
pine trees - a place of serenity, frozen like a painting by de
Chirico. The residential building Viviendas, on the Plaza Sant
Gregori Taumaturg, built in Barcelona between 1962 and 1963 by Ricardo
Bofill (Taller de Arquitectura) is reminiscent of a far more
massive fortress altogether. The slightly curving facade removes
some of the traditional Catalan monumentality from this red-
brick structure with its narrow windows and embrasure-like
waterspouts. From 1970 to 1973, Ricardo Bofill built an urban
landscape on the western edge of the city: the complex of
buildings known as Walden 7. This anticipated developments in
the industrial areas of all the world's major cities during the
1990s: on the site of a disused cement factory, Bofill planned
nothing less than a "City in Space".
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