This information was published on the day 14/01/2022. The content refers to that date.
This was the first time that the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) held a degree award ceremony ‘honoris causa’ in Santa Maria del Mar, which as an improvised paraninfo has no equal, and, well seen, the choice makes sense, because the honoree has been Ricardo Bofill, prophet of architecture, not only because he has preached it and left countless disciples around the world, but also because of the topic, because this, Barcelona, is his land, and in it he has always been suspiciously received. It was a strangely beautiful act. Why?
First, of course, for the staging. Santa Maria del Mar is one of the most magnificent buildings in the city. If it were about deciding a podium, the debate would not be easy, but most of the rivals would be architectures after the demolition of the city walls, a question to which Bofill, in his acceptance speech of the academic title, made a very interesting reflection. It will be detailed later.
The point is that the altar, forum of belief, has been occupied for a couple of hours by science. Perhaps the UPC more than any other university in the city symbolizes science as a pillar of knowledge and there they were, with all their theatricality, the academics, with their gowns, caps, puñetas and, above all, their mucetas, those capes that to Throughout history they have been shortened, it is not very well known why until they are above the elbows and in which each color symbolizes a knowledge. There were turquoise blue, representative of the pure sciences, but Bofill, as an architect, has worn that almost bronze brown of the engineers.
The rituals that are commonly celebrated in Santa Maria del Mar and other Catholic worship centers in the city are well known. Those of the layperson ‘honoris causa’, probably not. And they are very regulated.
The new doctor is introduced by a sponsor, in this case, Professor Félix Solaguren-Beascoa, in charge of exposing the merits of his academic godson. Most striking, however, is perhaps the final ‘Eucharist’, the act of consecration. As the protocol establishes, but this time on an altar framed by the 10 most majestic columns in the city, Bofill has been crowned with a birrete symbolizing Minerva’s helmet, she was given a ring with the one who has been handcuffed with wisdom and donated some white gloves, color of purity. It is almost like a wedding, which the new doctor is not kissed. The rector gives him A hug.
Before that final consecration, however, the new doctor makes a speech, and Bofill’s, like it or not the legacy he leaves in the city, has been more than interesting. At 82 years old and still active, with several projects underway, speak as always, without caring what they will sayThat is why he is able to affirm that “Gaudí has been the greatest genius in the history of architecture” (nothing controversial so far) and, minutes later, to disdain the work of Le Corbusier, not because of its architecture, but because of its low stature as an urban planner. “I hated the city, especially the Mediterranean one”.
Bofill is the most international architect from Barcelona, what things are, thanks in part to Carlos Arias Navarro. Of that high position of the Franco regime, last president of the Government of the dictatorship, has also been remembered in his speech. “He was then mayor of Madrid and he forbade me to build in Spain again, so I had to move to work in Paris for 30 years.” In fact, Bofill’s relationship with authority already had a rebellious résumé. The Higher Technical School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB) that this Thursday has elevated him to a doctor is the heir to the same faculty in which he could not finish his studies due to ‘rojeras’. He was expelled in 1957 and had to complete his studies abroad. That and Arias Navarro unwittingly made him a prophet in his homeland for part of his professional career, although always with the Walden building (the French May 69 built on site) as a beacon of his creative potential.
While reading his speech at the altar of Santa Maria del Mar, what would be Bofill’s miracles have been projected onto a screen, executed works and projects that were left in a drawer either by hat or by be in their day. They can all be visited on the website of your workshop. But, what was said at the beginning, the reflection he has made about Barcelona, a city that, in his opinion, is not like any other has been especially tasty. His Macedonian architectural styles is really nourishing, he says, but what is striking, from an ‘honoris causa’ point of view, is that stop that Barcelona suffered in the 16th and 17th centuries, during the Renaissance and the Baroque, constrained within walls that prevented something architecturally striking from happening. Without architecture, the ideas of the Enlightenment did not arrive either, and that ailment, Bofill fears, may be reproducing itself again, not because of some walls, but because of the endogamous vision of current politics.
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