RCR - Aranda Pigem Vilalta

The office established in 1988 by the  architects Aranda, Pigem and Vilalta has been awarded this year with the Pritzker prize, one of the most renowned ones worldwide for  Architecture. They are the second Spanish architects to get this award, after Rafael Moneo, who achieved it in 1996.

We start this category in our blog with this article, because we admire much of their projects a long time ago. What we value most in their works is the courage and autonomy of the concept, the fact of not imitating following common styles, keeping the coherence of the project to get a forceful goal.



Hence, to be strong means: to choose a material as steel or stone for a project and do it until the very last consequences, or to decide that a project must play with the transparencies and then explore the several options that the glass can offer.



RCR, in their devotion for the Japanese culture, and with their speech towards the mediterranean and local roots, they stay loyal to the construction material properties. The purity of the concept is taken to the limit many times, with a very satisfactory end, strong and sensible at a time.



We had the pleasure to visit some of their works, in Olot (Girona). Indeed the Hotel Les Cols, that creates an almost metaphysic world. A hotel with sky views, but without bizarre luxuries, where to have a time means to reencounter yourself. A truly world apart, that could easily be told as a piece of authentic world.

Sirine Ghadban