Shortly after graduating from the School of Architecture of the Vallès, Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta returned to Olot, their home town, surrounded by four volcanoes within the Natural Park of the volcanic area of la Garrotxa. The architect’s proximity with nature has been a key influence on their architectural sensibility. It means the recognition of the place as fundamental for a view, an identity and a manner.

Their work, especially the early work, is located mainly in the province of Girona in Catalonia, but also in nearby France and, recently, in Belgium or Dubai. In that mediation in a territory marked by geography, landscape and culture, arises an architecture that honors and appreciates its origin, but at the same time intervenes in it with great formal freedom that has managed to combine the interpretation of the place with references and global influences that turn their designs into universal architecture. In the works you can visit in La Garrotxa meet traditional architecture and volcanic landscape with international references as the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, the German Ludwig Mies van de Rohe or traditional and contemporary Japanese architecture, but they are also inspired by the Land Art of the American artist Richard Serra or French painter Pierre Soulages, just to mention only a few.
 
The architecture critic Josep Maria Montaner suggests some key topics in their work, considering them "masters at creating indoor and outdoor spaces, to the extent that they have tenaciously continued the line of modern architecture, breaking the boundaries between interior and exterior. They have perfected an ability to create filters and in-between spaces that do not respond to the classic inside-outside duality" [1].
 
In 2013, RCR BUNKA Private Foundation is constituted, a non-profit organization created by RCR Arquitectes with the same spirit of their work. They consider that the rooting of their work in the landscape linked to the nature of this territory enriches its historical memory. Its value as a heritage of general interest to the country and particularly to the Garrotxa, in times of very fast changes in society, suggests and underlines the need for ensuring the conservation of this heritage.
                         
The Foundation aims to stimulate socially the assessment of architecture and landscape, arts and culture in increasingly broader sections of society. Just like the architecture studio bet in the past to established in Olot, the Foundation wants to establish a humanist and independent cultural activity away from the traditional centers of big cities, thus participating of the decentralization of culture and producing new models of exchange.
 
For the fulfilment of its purposes, the Foundation, among other activities, and without limitation, may promote, organize and practice in the activities as exhibitions and editions of all types and formats, grants and grants for works, competitions, research programs and awards, forums, seminars, workshops, courses, laboratories, conferences, symposia, debates and roundtables. It also offers guided visits to the Barberí Space that opens its doors in the month of August, during with the International Summer Workshop.
 
RCR Arquitectes invites you to step into the universe of shared creativity. Welcome!
 
[1] Montaner, Josep Maria. “The World of RCR”, El Croquis 162, 2012