Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura headquarter building

Interesting facts

When Bofill acquired the abandoned works, the complex held more than 30 silos, underground galleries and huge machine halls.

The conversion began with destruction: dynamite and jackhammers were used for well over a year to strip the plant down to the forms worth keeping.

Many of the silos were still packed with concrete and had to be hollowed out before they could become rooms.

The architecture studio fills a group of silos about 15 metres tall, arranged on four levels joined by a spiral staircase.

The old underground galleries were put to use too, holding the practice's model workshop and archive.

Eucalyptus, palms, olive trees and cypresses were planted around the concrete, and climbing plants were left to cover its walls.

Bofill treated the building as permanently unfinished, and its spaces have been reworked again and again since the 1970s.

In 2000 Bofill brought the work of his international practice back together under one roof at La Fábrica.

Why it is worth it

La Fábrica looks like a ruin that has been colonised by a garden: massive concrete silos and cylinders, some cut open, some pierced with tall Gothic-like windows, wrapped in lush gardens that spill over walls and rooftops. Behind this romantic surface is one of the most celebrated acts of adaptive reuse of the 20th century, a disused cement works that the architect Ricardo Bofill turned into the studio of his practice and into his own home.

The factory was built for the cement company La Auxiliar de la Construcción, founded around 1916–1917, whose "Sanson" brand was registered in 1920. Its chimney, designed by the American engineer Clifford Tomlinson and completed in 1924, stood 105 metres high and was then the tallest in Europe; a private rail line linked the plant to the network at Cornellà de Llobregat. Pollution brought growing opposition from the neighbourhood after the war, and in 1968 production moved to a new plant in Sant Feliu de Llobregat. Bofill and his Taller de Arquitectura found the abandoned site in 1972 and bought it in 1973. Rather than restoring it, they demolished parts of the structure to reveal the shapes hidden inside, then turned the surviving silos into offices and dwellings. The work was largely finished by 1975 and mixes echoes of Catalan Gothic and surrealism with the ideas of postmodernism and critical regionalism.

Inside are the practice's offices, a model workshop, archives and a library, and a vast hall known as "the Cathedral", used for meetings, exhibitions and concerts. Bofill lived above it, among terraces and planted roofs, until his death in January 2022. The building won Barcelona's city architecture prize in 1980, and its strange beauty has made it a film set, appearing in "Paradise Hills" (2019) and the third season of "Westworld". Directly next door rises Walden 7, Bofill's honeycomb-like apartment block of 1970–1975, while the old chimney, outside the Bofill complex, has been converted separately. Sant Just Desvern is a small municipality on the western edge of Barcelona.

Getting there

La Fábrica stands in Sant Just Desvern, at the western edge of the Barcelona metropolitan area, beside the Walden 7 housing complex. The nearest airport is Josep Tarradellas Barcelona–El Prat (BCN), about 9 km away.

Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura headquarter building

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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