Importance of Walden 7

Walden 7

 The Walden 7 is an apartment building designed by Ricardo Bofill's team and located in the town of Sant Just Desvern, close to Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain. The name of the building is inspired by B.F Skinner's science-fiction novel, Walden Two, which depicts a utopian community.

With a budget lower than the norm for subsidized housing at the time, Walden 7 was built in the area to the west of Barcelona. The building is composed of towers which are displaced from their base, forming a curve and coming into contact with the neighbouring towers. The result is a vertical labyrinth with seven interconnecting interior courtyards. 

The exterior facade has the appearance of a huge fortification completely painted in red, which is opened to the exterior through large overtures like urban windows of several stories high. The courtyards have a lively treatment because of the intense blue and yellow colored facade. The main courtyard, at the building's entrance, is a recovery of the street and the plaza for the benefit of the inhabitants, which generates an interior world apart from the exterior chaos.
 

Walden 7 embodies the concept of architectural magnitude as well as a new, enriching feature into the suburban environment which surrounds it. It attempts to provide a solution to the problems of life in today’s cities where there is a lack of community, of collective activity, of public space placed at the disposition of the individual. It also creates a distinguished space in contrast to the mediocrity of its surroundings, stimulating in this way an animation of community life in its interiors.
 
This building consists of 446 apartments, grouped around five courtyards, in top of which are two swimming pools. With few exceptions, each apartment face both outside of the block and into one of the courtyard, at many levels, there is a complex system of bridges and balconies for access producing a fantastic variety of views and enclosures.

Personal opinion; On the visit to Walden 7 I learned several things, one of them was that the whole facade was geometric and that the architect thought about the process of being down in the lower levels and going up to the roof. On the buttom level the walls were white with written words that represented some sort of passing away or "death" and once you went to the roof you could see the light of the day, the freshness of the cold breezy air and the views all around. Another thing really intriguing was the choice of colors, that somehow represented earth and water. The building, although its not my personal style, was pretty interesting the story behind it and the way the people living there is really a community that prepares special nights (ex. movie night). I really enjoyed the visit.