Coac exhibition pays tribute to architect Bosch Aymerich

The architectural establishment never forgave Josep Maria Bosch Aymerich for his work in sales. It was not considered appropriate that an architect should make such a good living. Recognition passed him by and he had to wait until 2013 until the Catalan government awarded him the Sant Jordi Cross, but even then for his work as a businessman, not as an architect.

Yet a new generation of critics are reconsidering his work and his more than 500 projects, many of them visionary, which included the corporate buildings, tourist resorts, ports, airports and motorways he built in more than 15 countries, which apart from Spain include Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Algeria and Dubai. And that is without including the 5,000 dwellings he designed.

Bosch Aymerich did not seem to mind and he continued working into old age, including setting up a private foundation to oversee his legacy. A new exhibition that runs until December 7 in the Coac architects’ association in Barcelona now pays tribute to that legacy. Curator, Roger Subirà, says research is still required on the work of the prolific but largely ignored architect. “His is a functional architecture of extremely high quality,” he says. Some examples in Barcelona are the Institut d’Estudis Nord-americans on Via Augusta, the L’Aliança clinic, or the HQ of the Hoechst chemical company on Travessera de Gràcia.