The legacy that Ricardo Bofill left to Madrid (and what could have been)

• Obituary Ricardo Bofill dies, architect of the counterculture and the 'jet set'

• Culture The Red Wall of Bofill, the most Instagrammed building in Spain

Saint Petersburg, Prague, Beirut, Baghdad, Bordeaux, Moscow, Houston, Tokyo, Stockholm, Dakar, Montpellier, Paris, Versailles, Miami, Venice, Marrakech, Madeira, Chicago, Savona, Dallas, Kawasaki, Casablanca, The Hague, Bordeaux, Lisbon, Ibiza, Bilbao, Barcelona, ​​Calpe...

(1939-2022) has left his mark, and part of his heritage, in cities around the world.

Including

.

worked in the capital

throughout his long career on numerous projects, although not all of them saw the light of day.

From these lines, we review

-when we still managed with pesetas- and the one that he left behind.

The Municipal Palace of Congresses.Gregori Civera

Municipal Palace of Congresses of Madrid

The first and great architectural work carried out by Ricardo Bofill in the city dates back to the early 1990s. In the

he built the Palacio Municipal de Congresos, a building clad in limestone and double glass skin, with which the architect came to complete the economic and business project that had been developed in previous years around Ifema.

15,000,000,000 million of the old pesetas were needed to build this building, 27 meters high, which

.

Faced with the challenge of creating a building that, due to its complexity, would have needed more than one volume on a site where meters were scarce, Bofill designed a single-block building (72,000 m2) that he perceived as

, each intended for a function.

An architecture within architecture, as defined in his workshop.

, the building was divided into four blocks to house all its facilities: two large auditoriums with 2,000 and 900 seats, four conference rooms with capacity for 200 and 100 people, a permanent exhibition space , an office area, a cafeteria and a restaurant for 2,000 people.

The Manzanares Linear Park.Gregori Civera

Manzanares Linear Park

Ten years later, the architect completed another project that the Madrid City Council had commissioned him in 1998, the

Manzanares Linear Park (budget at 25,000 million pesetas).

Bofill's workshop was in charge of conditioning 600 hectares of

the capital were located.

The execution of the architect's design recovered that unattractive southern area of ​​Madrid, and transformed it into

, for recreational and sports use by the residents of the adjoining neighbourhoods.

In addition to hiding the light and water installations (and the annoying odours) with a natural design, he created

and a road linking both shores for the enjoyment of the people of Madrid.

He also designed an amphitheater for cultural activities, a Roman forum-style concert area, a sports complex, swimming pools, ponds and nurseries for growing a wide variety of trees, shrubs and plants.

The tower he designed for Telefónica.RBTA

Telephone District

In the late 1990s, Bofill designed

for the city that Telefónica planned to build in Las Tablas.

The contest was won by Antonio Lamela's studio, with its gigantic cubes, and the Catalan architect's design remained on paper.

Forming an inverted T, the company's trademark, and inscribed in a square and vital circle, Bofill devised a glass tower and a horizontal structure (or technological street), where

in the shape of a cube and a

, arranged on a garden.

The tower, with flexible spaces adaptable to future organizational changes), would house the office itself, according to the architect's project, with individual offices, for teams, meeting rooms, training areas... And the

and the cube would house a restaurant and a cafeteria, a press room, an auditorium, multiple rooms, a residence hotel, a health clinic, an ICU room, a swimming pool, a gym or space for temporary exhibitions.

Project to extend the Castellana.RBTA

Extension of the Paseo de la Castellana

It is well known that in the 25 years it took for

to get off the ground, multiple projects have been outlined to close this urban wound -plagued by degraded plots of land and railway lines- and unite La Castellana with the northern neighborhoods of the city.

Well,

.

In 1997 he presented his design for the extension of this road to the M-40 and Monte del Pardo with the same concepts with which it will finally be built -although not under his name-, balancing public facilities, shops, offices, homes and Parkland.

Bofill imagined, as detailed in the project dossier, "a new neighbourhood, highly modern and avant-garde, designed and built with tectonic architecture and far removed from

styles " that would also prolong "the history of architecture Madrid".

Drawing of the architect of the station of Chamartín.RBTA

Chamartin Station

In line with the previous project, and at the same time, the Catalan architect also designed a new Chamartín station that would be integrated into the future urban context and would also become a

where long-distance trains, regional and the suburban ones were interconnected with the metro and the bus station.

The main idea that Bofil handled was to create a building, with two floors,

.

The station would have a meeting point, a large square with typical services, and a shopping arcade.

Another project that ultimately did not fall into his hands and that, to this day, has no assigned architect or chosen design.

Model of City in Space.RBTA

city ​​in space

At the beginning of his career, around the 1970s, Ricardo Bofill submitted the City in Space project to the competition,

-similar to those projected in other cities, half reality, half utopian- that was never built.

The architect devised a building, conceived as a multifunctional neighborhood and inspired by a vision of the social reality of the time, with a modular system that combined cubic volumes.

, since he conceived, already in those years, that the construction could quickly accommodate changes in the real estate market.

He created an elevated complex with streets, squares and gardens

that communicated the different areas in height.

Model of the Museum of Royal Collections.RBTA

Royal Collections Museum

In 1999 Bofill presented his project to the competition launched by National Heritage for the construction of the Royal Collections Museum in the vicinity of the Royal Palace, the Almudena Cathedral and the Campo del Moro.

Bofill's workshop proposal favored the connection and interrelation of the museum with the historical environment and was made up of two volumes: a compact and opaque body for the exhibition and another open and transparent for the lobby and distributor.

Taking up ideas from Juvara and Sachetti (architects of the Royal Palace) and

, projected a museum conception that included a longitudinal skylight on the roof and a facade of natural stone, white granite typical of the area and glass of various textures.

His proposal did not win and the museum was executed by the Mansilla + Tuñón Arquitectos studio.

Conforms to The Trust Project criteria

Know more

• Architecture

ECHOES OF VERBENA (XIV)When ideology goes through the brick: the 'boom' of neomudejar in Tetouan

ECHOES OF VERBENA (XIII)The House of the Coffin, the unknown predecessor of the Metropolis Building

Events The Community of Madrid notified the Prosecutor's Office 84 times about the absences of prostituted minors

See links of interest

• Last News

• What

• Work calendar 2022

• Work calendar Madrid 2022

• Home THE WORLD today

• Cadiz - Celta Vigo

• Villarreal - Real Madrid

• Rayo Vallecano - Osasuna

• Atletico Madrid - Getafe

• Alaves - Valencia CF