Walden 7 reflects Ricardo Bofill’s visions for a better urban living | Design Stories (2024)

To honor the life and work of Ricardo Bofill (1939–2022), Design Stories is remembering the renowned Spanish architect through one of his most utopian, and controversial, works: Walden 7, a surreal housing complex located close to Barcelona.

SPANISH ARCHITECT Ricardo Bofill, who passed away in early 2022, became known for his visionary buildings that redefined the concepts of urban living. One of his masterpieces is the gigantic apartment complex named Walden 7.

This project was supposed to be more than just a housing complex, or a peculiar series of superposed apartments. Instead, the architect wanted to create a community with shared spaces and gardens, a place where private and public spaces mix, and the daily life of its residents is improved.

The result is a colossal building with 446 apartments, each formed by one or more cells, as the architect called them, looking onto the exterior and one of the courtyards. To connect them, there is a labyrinthian system of bridges and balconies ­– the best way to imagine it is to picture a practical version of the Dutch artist M. C. Escher’s Relativity (1953), a place that seems to defy the laws and conventions by which our usual world is ruled.

The cherries on top: swimming pools on the roof create yet another communal space for the residents to enjoy.

Each of the cells is a 30 square-meter space with its own unique entrance and thought for a single person to inhabit. Originally each had the essentials that one would expect in a living space: a kitchenette, a toilet, a bath, a table, and various cupboards. These cells didn’t have conventional rooms but instead walls and curtains to separate spaces and, if needed, add privacy.

Apartments range from single-cell studios to four-module dwellings, each arranged in its own unique way.

What if two or more people wanted to live together at Walden 7? This was also thought of. Several cells can be, and have been, united horizontally or vertically to create bigger spaces. Thanks to this flexibility, apartments range from single-cell studios to four-module dwellings, each arranged in its own unique way.

What Walden 7 is today is not quite what Bofill envisioned. The original project was formed by several groups of apartments, facilities, and public spaces, resembling an anthill or a small town. What ended up being built was only the first phase of the architect’s vision, so we will never know the impact the project would have had if finished.

Nevertheless, its unconventional structure has inspiredcountless other housing complexes and questionedthe waywe live in cities.

More about Walden 7 and Ricardo Bofill

• Ricardo Bofill (1939–2022) was the founder and chairman of Taller de Arquitectura. Throughout his career, he led more than 1000 projects in over 50 countries, ranging from private housing to urban design. Some of his most remarkable works internationally includeParibas Marché Saint Honoré (Paris), Platinum Tower (Beirut), and 77 West Wacker Drive (Chicago).
• Walden 7 was built in 1975 in what used to be a concrete factory on the outskirts of Sant Just Desvern, a town very close to Barcelona. Also located in the same lot is La Fábrica (The Factory), the complex that houses Taller de Arquitectura’s offices and the Bofill family home.
• The building’s name comes from two different books:B. F. Skinner’s Walden Two (1948) andHenry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854). Thoreau’s work inspired Skinner to name the utopian community where Walden Two takes place, as well as the four other communitiesmentioned in the book, numberingup to Walden 6.
• Walden 7 has aclosearchitectural sibling: La Muralla Roja, a breathtaking apartment complexbuilt on the coast of Spain a few years earlier.

See also:

• Ricardo Bofill’s La Muralla Roja – a cinematographic dream house in coastal Spain >

Text: Irene de Mas Castanyer Images: Pol Viladoms

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