Luis Fernández-Galiano   Any description of the bright and dark work of RCR must resort to oxymoron. One may use geometric landscapes, weightless gravity or – as their projects were presented here in 2010 – rigorous romanticism: these antithetic terms express the tension bet

William Curtis   In an era that enjoys bandying around slogans, it is as well to be reminded that the first task of criticism is to respond to constructed works. Nothing can replace the direct experience of buildings and the gradual understanding of the thoughts, ima

Josep Maria Montaner   A portion of the works designed by RCR Arquitectes – Rafael Aranda (1961), Carme Pigem (1962) and Ramon Vilalta (1960), based in Olot – over the last twenty-five years are located in France and Belgium. The working method and characteristics of RCR’s

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The studio of RCR Arquitectes in Olot, Gerona, has been under transformation over more than one decade. In 2004 the architects bought the old Barberí foundry building, then in ruins, with the objective of transforming it gradually into a workspace th

RCR Arquitectes   Belgium   Located outside Hofheide, a municipality in the northeast of Brussels, the crematorium goes up on a marshy basin that stresses the horizontality of the landscape. The main building, surrounded by a lake, is framed within a perimetral promenade that a

RCR Arquitectes   France   The museum devoted to Pierre Soulages – artist born in 1919, one of the fathers of informalism in France – rises in a park of his hometown, Rodez, very close to the great Gothic cathedral that lords over the urban fabric. The location determines the

RCR Arquitectes   France   Located on the banks of Aveyron River as it goes by Nègrepelisse, a small rural community in the French Midi-Pyrénées region, La Cuisine Art Center is a cultural space devoted to culinary art, understood as an integral activity linked to the territor

RCR Arquitectes, G. Tregouet   France   This purpose of this project of the Catalan, Olot-based firm RCR arquitectes – in collaboration with G. Tregouet – was to merge a preexisting, 1960s building in an expansive meadow in Girona with a new construction, to then reconnect the complex with

RCR Arquitectes   France   Located on a hillside facing south in the Eastern Pyrenees, the school complex includes different facilities for kindergarten and primary school for three towns: Font-Romeu, Odeillo and Via. The situation of the site, as well as its exceptional views

RCR Arquitectes, Coussée & Goris architecten   Belgium   The new media library, in the center of Ghent, sits at a bend of the krook, the canal that runs through the city and reaches its lowest level at this point, marking the two ‘zero levels’ of the city: that of the canal itself and that of the many brid

RCR Arquitectes   France   Located in the old district of Bordeaux, the project proposes renovating an old structure used originally as a warehouse and that offers beautifully vaulted spaces that were once cellars to store fish and supplies. The intervention tries, furthermore

RCR Arquitectes   France   The building, known as ‘L’Ilot Plaza,’ takes up the west part of an urban block in the neighborhood of Mérignac, on the outskirts of Bordeaux. Addressing a complex urban situation and a diverse environment – including, to the north, Mérignac church a

RCR Arquitectes   France   Located in Lormont, in the metropolitan area of Bordeaux, the estate where this project goes up includes a large garden with tall trees and the Bois Fleuri manor house, a structure in the style of the small châteaux dotting the French countryside. Th

RCR Arquitectes   France   The house where the painter Pierre Soulages was born, located halfway between the Soulages Museum, devoted to his work, and the cathedral of Rodez, occupies a small building between party walls with three levels plus basement and attic. The house is

RCR Arquitectes   France   The Brazza area, north of Bordeaux, comprises old industrial terrains between the train tracks and the Garonne River, an area that is now undergoing an urban renewal process. The project, on a corner across from the train tracks, proposes a program o

RCR Arquitectes   Belgium   The project for this single-family house in the city of Ghent was chosen in a private competition called by the future owner, also an architect, who invited three teams to submit proposals. The site assigned is in the interior of an urban block, surr

RCR Arquitectes   France   The international competition for the new congress center in Nancy, called in 2007 by the public administration, aimed at giving this municipality of 105,000 inhabitants a multipurpose and flexible space to boost its position as commercial center bet

RCR Arquitectes   France   Located in the renewed neighborhood of Saint-Cyprien, on the southern bank of Garonne River by the urban center of Toulouse, the plot assigned used to be occupied by an old laundry that was demolished to build Charles de Fitte Avenue. The existing co

RCR Arquitectes   France   Devoted to the history and art of the region, the Museum of Lorraine takes up a historical complex in the heart of the city of Nancy, comprising the buildings next to the Palace of the Dukes of Lorraine – a magnificent construction of the French Rena

RCR Arquitectes   France   Located in the university campus of Pessac, outside the metropolitan area of Bordeaux, the building gathers different uses to service university facilities scattered over the surrounding area. This varied program is unified by a central atrium, which

RCR Arquitectes   France   Located north of Bordeaux, across from the locks that close the canal of access to the city’s seaport from the Garonne River, this urban intervention spans a large dock whose port facilities, already obsolete, are replaced by a complex of mixed-use b