RCR Arquitectes - The Intangible Tangible / The Intangible Tangible

RCR Arquitectes is one of the most respected contemporary architectural studios not only in its native Spain. It was founded in 1988 by Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta. Their buildings communicate very sensitively with their surroundings, avoiding unnecessary or rhetorical forms, while combining meticulousness and strength. RCR Arquitectes is based in the town of Olot in the province of Girona. The landscape around this small town, where this team of architects established itself in 1988, has had a fundamental influence on their work.

“Living and working in harmony with the landscape” – this slogan has accompanied the Catalan studio RCR Arquitectes since the very beginning. This is also one of the reasons why the architects settled in the town of Olot, located at the foot of the Pyrenees. Although they create their works far from the pulsating Barcelona, they demonstrate in several key projects that rural environments are not entirely foreign to modern architectural concepts. Despite a complete violation of established construction concepts suitable for these places, their architectural works correlate with the surrounding landscape delicately and in complete harmony with nature. By using patina steel, known as Corten, which significantly slows down the rate of corrosion, the RCR studio incorporated a material that is completely in tune with the character of the surrounding nature into its buildings.

Carme Pigem, one of the architects of RCR, who participated in last year's conference Architecture Beyond the Centers in Liberec, among other things said: “After studying in a big city, we naturally returned to our town, Olot. We didn't even think about any other option, as it seemed completely logical to us. We received an important piece of advice from our professor – You must refuse your first big client. When someone comes to you, young architects, offering a huge project in an immensely attractive location, refuse it. It's a trap. Many talented architects spent their first years chasing a chimera. The result was just a lot of wasted energy that they could have dedicated to small but meaningful projects. – So when an investor came to us offering the possibility of working on a complex of more than 300 apartments overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, we said: No”….
After RCR Arquitectes built several houses, a stadium, a restaurant, and guesthouses in Olot, they showcased the essence of their work and topographical approach in the Horizon House in Girona, Spain, completed in 2007. This residence is literally embedded in the ridge of a hill, from which parallel volumes of glass and steel emerge at regular intervals. However, a similarly sensitive approach is offered by a number of other projects. Just to name a few – Changing Rooms in Olot (1998), Cultural Center Riudaura (1999), Athletic Stadium in Olot (2001), Bell-Lloc Winery in Palamós (2007), Public Space Teatro La Lira in Ripoll (2011), several private houses, or in 2014, the remarkable Soulages Museum in France's Rodez.
In addition to the frequent use of materials such as the aforementioned Corten, RCR also utilizes the advantages offered by glass. One can recall a project where they work with glass through a play of color filters – in the Els Colors kindergarten building in Manlleu, or addressing the theme of transparency in the renowned restaurant with an inn, Els Cols in Olot.

In the local bamboo garden, we can also encounter another element – metal strips that highlight the natural metaphor. These are also found in one of RCR's “beyond-Spain” realizations, which is the crematorium building in Hofheid, Belgium, where these strips form the cladding of the outer walls, symbolizing the foliage of trees. The architects achieve that air and light permeate the cracks of the building, disrupting the material shell, resulting in what in this case is the intention but also an important theme of RCR Arquitectes – “materializing the immaterial”.

A considerable sensitivity to nature has also led the architects to another activity, which is their long-standing role as consultants for the Natural Reserve of the volcanic area of La Garrotxa.
The work / architecture / RCR is strongly connected to the place where it is located, and it is also necessary to speak of the strong atmosphere that it evokes.

Their first exhibition, not only in the Czech Republic but in Eastern Europe in general, does not represent a so-called portfolio presentation, that is “merely” pictures of already completed buildings, but as they themselves state, “Through photographs / Hisao Suzuki, Emiliano Roia, Pep Sau, Marc Checinski / you can experience different atmospheres in architectural spaces, as in architectural complexes… and make tangible what is intangible”.

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