The Barcelona School

Members

While the list of members cannot be considered complete or exhaustive, the following studios and architects are often associated with the Barcelona School:

Federico Correa, Alfons Milà, Estudio PER (integrated by Lluís Clotet, Pep Bonet, Christian Cirici and Óscar Tusquets) Gabriel Mora, Helio Piñón & Albert Viaplana, the Taller de Arquitectura with Ricardo Bofill, MBM (Oriol Bohigas. Josep Martorell and David Mackay), Lluís Cantallops, Ramon Maria Puig, Leandre Sabater, Lluís Nadal, Vicenç Bonet, Pere Puigdefàbregues, Enric Tous & Josep Maria Fargas.

International Connections

The production of the Barcelona School revealed a connection with the contemporary movement at the Milan School. The influence of Federico Correa on a generation of Catalan architects, through his role as a professor at the Barcelona School of Architecture, was also decisive. Given the timeliness and obvious ideological and contextual coincidences, Bohigas defined the “Barcelona School” as a local reflection of the climate that existed in Italy with what was called architectural neorealism. There are similarities in the features that characterize both movements: a rationalist constructive language, a reflection on the Mediterranean and on tradition and popular elements in architecture, and an interest in design.

Modernity and Tradition

The architecture of the School of Barcelona was intended to respond to collective needs, exploring the possibilities of traditional construction techniques and considering the conditioning factors for each project and its context. There was a continuity with rationalism in the sincere expression of the construction techniques and the logical decisions that informed the designs. Its representatives adopted an avant-garde approach, and in their work they were able to predict, test and “push” the formal codes characteristic of the architecture of their time towards new avenues of expression.

Legacy

The architecture of the Barcelona School laid the ideological and formal foundations for the profound urban transformations of the 1980s and it helps to explain the amazing architectural climate in Barcelona in the pre-Olympic years, as well as the widespread international attention and admiration it received. In this sense, the Barcelona School was just that: a space for collective reflection and generational transmission and continuity, both in the academic realm and in professional architecture studios.

• In depth The Barcelona School