terracotta and white architecture in Spain

Richardo Bofill

Richardo Bofill Levi, Spanish architect.

Born in 1939 to a property developer and builder Emilio Bofill and Maria Levi, Richardo studied architecture in Barcelona. He has always been politically engaged, however this took a dark turn early on. Demonstrating against the Franco government in the late 1950s he was arrested and had to leave Spain quickly to avoid imprisonment, he continued his education in Geneva.

Returning to Spain afterwards and beginning to lay the foundation stones of his career, in 1963 he joined his father’s company. He brought in writers, filmmakers and artists to work alongside the architects to great success.

A striking early development which brought together both his skills as an architect and his political views was Walden 7, a particularly unusual development.

In 1971 he opened a Paris office which was going to be necessary if he was to be seriously considered for the new towns springing up around the outskirts of Paris. He was commissioned in 1978 to build Abraxas Espaces in Noisy-le-Grand. He was lined up to re-build Les Halles but at the last moment Jacques Chirac pulled the plug on his project, it was instead offered to another architect and the result is the Forum des Halles that we know today.

Richardo’s practice Taller de Arquitectura has gone from strength to strength and has completed more than a thousand projects.