Ricardo Bofill’s La Muralla Roja as captured by Sebastian Weiss
As a tribute to architecture icon Ricardo Bofill (1939 – 2022) we revisit Hamburg-based photographer Sebastian Weiss’ captivating photo series on ‘La Muralla Roja’, first published in 2020

Sebastian Weiss - Photography
For Sebastian Weiss, it’s not the popularity of a building or the architect’s name that lures him in. ‘It could also be a completely trivial building, like a supermarket or parking garage that has a charisma.’ In November 2019, spurred on by the release of ‘Ricardo Bofill: Visions of Architecture’, Weiss visited one of the architect's most notable feats, ‘La Muralla Roja’ designed in 1968 and located in Calp, Spain.
Lodging in the fully-functioning apartment complex for a week, he documented the strict, alternating geometry, surreal colour schemes and sci-fi-esque shadow plays. Here, Weiss offers a window into the otherworldly realm of ‘The Red Wall’. As a tribute to the legendary Spanish architect, who passed away on 14 January 2022, we revisit Weiss’ experience of creating the iconic series.
Sebastian Weiss on photographing Ricardo Bofill’s La Muralla Roja
The sun was already low in the sky, casting the entire series in a warm autumnal tone. Long shadows intensified the impression of the strict architecture and add more plasticity to the images
The photographic encounter with a building feels to me like a meeting with a strange or unknown person, there is curiosity and tension, but also respect and restraint
This architectural utopia was really a major event for me as a photographer because it is such an absurdly beautiful and surreal location, which appears sometimes like a film set or a staging
INFORMATION
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Harriet Lloyd-Smith was the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.
-
Tuneshine is a new way of bringing back the lost art of the album cover
The compact Tuneshine screen uses LED tech to illuminate the artwork of whatever you’re currently streaming
-
Inside the new theatre at Jacob’s Pillow and its ‘magic box’, part of a pioneering complex designed for dance
Jacob’s Pillow welcomes the reborn Doris Duke Theatre by Mecanoo, a new space that has just opened in the beloved Berkshires cultural hub for the summer season
-
What to see at Rencontres d’Arles 2025, questioning power structures in the state and family
Suppressed memories resurface in sharply considered photography at Rencontres d'Arles 2025. Here are some standout photographers to see
-
Cindy Sherman in Menorca: ‘She's decades ahead of social media and the construction of identity for the camera’
‘Cindy Sherman: The Women’, its title a nod to an image-conscious 1930s Broadway hit, takes the American artist's carefully constructed, highly performative works to Hauser & Wirth Menorca
-
What is recycling good for, asks Mika Rottenberg at Hauser & Wirth Menorca
US-based artist Mika Rottenberg rethinks the possibilities of rubbish in a colourful exhibition, spanning films, drawings and eerily anthropomorphic lamps
-
The largest posthumous survey of Helen Frankenthaler puts her in the frame with Pollock and Rothko
Guggenheim Bilbao hosts 'Painting Without Rules', a major exhibition of soak-stain innovator Helen Frankenthaler’s paintings that also includes Pollock and Rothko
-
This rainbow-coloured flower show was inspired by Luis Barragán's architecture
Modernism shows off its flowery side at the New York Botanical Garden's annual orchid show.
-
Mona Kuhn’s love affair with Rudolph Schindler’s modernist LA home
‘The Schindler House: A Love Affair’ features artist Mona Kuhn’s surreal-inspired silver prints evoking an impossible love
-
Suburbia: American dream or residential nightmare, asks multidisciplinary show
‘Suburbia. Building the American Dream’ digs deep into the archetypes, rise and realities of suburban living, at Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
-
Ibiza is the new hotspot for contemporary art
Gathering Ibiza opens, a Balearic outpost of the London gallery, as founder Alex Flick hails the island’s emerging contemporary art scene
-
Helmut Newton’s life and work to be celebrated in a major exhibition in A Coruña, Spain
‘Helmut Newton - Fact & Fiction’, created with the Helmut Newton Foundation, will open at the Marta Ortega Pérez (MOP) Foundation in November 2023