Ricardo Bofill Meets Henri Lefebvre: La Ciudad en el Espacio, Benidorm and the “Concrete Utopia”

Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) was a regular visitor to Spain from the end of the 1960s and during the 1970s, due to his close relationship with sociologist Mario Gaviria (1938-2018) who had been a student of his in Strasbourg. As a result of this relationship, Gaviria introduced urban sociology to Spain and translated the philosopher’s main texts. In turn, Lefebvre came into contact with the country’s urban and architectural situation. These were the final, convulsive years of the Franco dictatorship. They were marked by increasing social politicisation and opposition to the regime, accelerated economic growth and an exodus from the countryside to the city, which transformed the cities and expanded the working-class suburbs, especially of Madrid and Barcelona. For an entire generation of young technicians, most of whom were politically committed, Lefebvre provided tools for a critical analysis of this reality and for criticism of the limits of the field. In this context, Henri Lefebvre became interested in the works of Ricardo Bofill’s (1939-2022) Taller de Arquitectura, which proposed an alternative to the urban development of “barres et tours” and to functionalist precepts, and was strongly influenced by the defiant spirit of 1968. The debate that was taking place in France on “grands ensembles” and “villes nouvelles” resounded in the background. Lefebvre considered that the Taller de Arquitectura’s La Ciudad en el Espacio was an example of “concrete utopia”, like the New Babylon by Constant Nieuwenhuys. However, Bofill did aim to build his utopias.