Growing up with an architect father (whose constructive roots may well be traced back to the master builder of Girona cathedral in the 15th century) and a Venetian Jew mother who was the cornerstone of the family, young Ricardo Bofill Levi had to demonstrate very early on the exceptional talent that those close by saw in him. This combination of expectations and self-esteem equipped him for an easy passage from the Lycée Français to the Barcelona School of Architecture, from which he was however expelled, thanks to his anti-Franco activism and his contacts with the clandestine Communist Party. He moved to the Geneva School of Architecture, and so it was that he acquired early an international experience that would later develop in the French-speaking world, north and south of the Mediterranean, although his first steps in the professional arena would be taken in Spain, and in projects often linked to his father’s practice... [+]