La Fabrica was found as an abandoned cement factory in 1973 just outside Barcelona, Spain by Ricardo Bofill. The factory was originally built in the post World War I era, and was not built at once or as a whole, but as a series of additions as the factory and industry demanded. As an architect, Bofill was taken with the abandoned four kilometres worth of underground tunnels, the surprisingly well maintained shape each room and the vernacular architectural structure. From here, Bofill took the structure and implemented aesthetic trends in architecture like; surrealism, abstraction and brutalism, that had developed since the resurrection of the factory. Essentially, Bofill took an eyesore with great bones and converted it into a studio, gallery, home and a re- purposed city slowing being engulfed by vegetation.
Over many years, La Fabrica underwent consistent renovations, the goal was to uncover hidden rooms and create new relationships between different parts of the structure. After the layout was secure, Bofill’s next task was to fill the space with vegetation. The overgrowth of rooftop plants and the series of gardens was designed to blur the line between nature and structure. The multi purpose factory, stands as a hidden world just between the clutches of historical architecture and a modern thinking fauna fortress.