Ricardo Bofill (1939-2022), architect
The Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill passed away on January 14, at the age of 82. I don’t know most of his work, which means this note of remembrance is less about Bofill the architect per se and more about Bofill the designer of the La Muralla Roja, an apartment complex in Manzanera, Spain. Spanish for ‘The Red Wall’, La Muralla Roja is a brutalist-style complex in the shape of a Greek cross (all arms of equal length) with around 50 houses, designed to maximise the availability of space, natural light and social interactions. But the most striking things about La Muralla Roja are its colours – the walls are red, the courtyards are blue and pink, and everything else is violet – and that all its houses have a view of the Balearic Sea. As such, La Muralla Roja is Bofill the architect’s conception of utopian living. Ironically, if you didn’t know about this complex, you probably noticed an architectural design it most likely inspired in the dystopian show Squid Game. I’ll leave you with some beautiful images of the complex (all by beasty ./Unsplash). See here for more photos, including those provided by Bofill himself.
Featured image: A view of La Muralla Roja. Photo: Zhifei Zhou/Unsplash.
