Bernardo de Sola

Bernardo de Sola was born in 1947. After graduating in architecture in 1980 at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Bernardo de Sola entered the Urban Projects Department of Barcelona s city council as a municipal architect, where he worked until 1987. 



Since then, de Sola has worked for many municipal institutions of the city in projects on open spaces, urban infrastructures, buildings, repairs and urban elements design. His most outstanding project was the one of the 2d Cinturón Ronda de Dalt, one of the greatest contributions of the 90s to clear Barcelona s traffic and to create a road system that surrounds the city. 



Another of Sola s projects was the La Palmera square, FAD award finalist in 1984, that he created together with Pedro Barragán. This is a peculiar space that embodies the controversy between the municipal wish to invest in abstract contemporary art and the lack of understanding of the citizens, who call these squares “harsh squares”. In it, the El Muro wall-sculpture by Richard Serra, conceived as a piece of art, and a single palm tree, create a minimalist space with a certain devastated air. The neighbor s rejection came to such point that they allied to knock it down on a sunday, but the police, warned by an anonymous call, prevented them from doing so. In fact, the urban style that the city council chose in the 80s, with very little green spots, has received multiple opinions, but on the whole Barcelona s citizens have come to see it as an administrative imposition. 



Bernardo de Sola has also designed and directed the construction work, of the Via Júlia in Barcelona (with J. M. Julià, 1985), the Can Robacols square (with P. Barragán, 1987), the Gran Sol park in Badalona (with P. Barragán, 1986), the Llucmajor square and the entrances to the La Guineueta park (1987), the Valldaura promenade (with F. Ruiz de la Casa, 1987), the Prim square (with P. Barragán, 1987), the Catalunya square in Sabadell (with P. Barragán, 1988), the fire station at the Vall d Hebrón (1998), the Cerdà square (with A. Monclús, 2000), and the underground burying of the central section of the Ronda de Mitre (with A. Monclús, 2000). 



De Sola has also collaborated in the construction of the Felipe II bridge, a sculptoric and engineering project designed by renown architect Santiago Calatrava that received the FAD architecture award in 1987, and in the intelligent signposting project at the Diagonal avenue in Barcelona, also by Santiago Calatrava. 



But Bernardo de Sola has also designed urban elements, many of which where especially made in order to be a part of his own projects: the Vía Júlia markers, the light tower at the La Palmera square (with P. Barragán), the SOS boards inside the tunnels, the columns that support the overhead contact lines of the Tranvia Blau, the urban elements at the Rondes in Barcelona, the Nikolson lighting columns (with P. Barragán and J. M. Julià) and the Modelo 2000 column, and the Monza traffic light supports (with A. Gori).