'With him came scandal' is the expressive title used by another illustrious provocateur, Óscar Tusquets, for his introduction to the luxurious and extremely expensive monograph published by the German publishing house Wasmuth on the work of Alfredo Arribas.

Arribas, like Tusquets himself, Britain's Nigel Coates, France's Philippe Starck, and many others, moves with great ease between two worlds that should have no boundaries, even though they do: architecture and design. He is the typical product of a typical Barcelona, famous for the quality of teaching at its School of Architecture and also for being the breeding ground for an important generation of designers whose products are manufactured by companies all over the world.

The Network Café (1986-1987), which he created with Eduard Samsó, made him famous; the success was so resounding that bars and shops multiplied, and Arribas spent several years dedicated almost exclusively to designing and creating spectacular stage sets. In Barcelona, ​​architecture for night owls and design consumers bears his unmistakable stamp, and many of his works are featured in the tours offered by guidebooks to the Catalan capital. Later came his international acclaim, especially in Japan, where his latest construction is a multi-purpose office building and the headquarters of a museum of contemporary Spanish art in Marugame. With this tower and a project for an amusement park in the Italian city of Rimini, the book closes and perhaps a new stage in his career begins.