About this talk

Running time: 23 minutes (English), 16 minutes (Spanish)

At the beginning of the 60s, a collection of very young creative people from different disciplines came together in Barcelona, at the instigation of the charismatic Ricardo Bofill, and formed an architectural workshop known as Taller de Arquitectura. They were soon producing buildings that hit the headlines. Of the original group, the only qualified architects were Ricardo's sister Anna and Peter Hodgkinson from London.

Today, the team has expanded to include more architects, designers, builders and administrators - average age around 30 - totally cosmopolitan, totally democratic in their design method. The projects' designers, captained by Peter Hodgkinson, work in Barcelona; the builders, lead by Ramón Collado, are in Paris; Ricardo Bofill conducts the orchestra.

Their output of ideas and drawings is prodigious.

In this talk, Peter Hodgkinson talks about their work. Ricardo Bofill, speaking in Spanish, then describes how the Taller's approach has changed from one of experiment to one of synthesis. They seek, he says, to create symbolic urban spaces for everyone, to construct symbols which re-establish the relationship of individuals to community, using new criteria of harmony, and developing a classical vocabulary in a modern way with modern materials and technology.

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