Ricardo nous a quitté le 25 décembre, il laisse dans ma vie un grand vide, moi qui suis et restera le « jeune » architecte avec lequel il s’est associé. Il fut mon complice, mon guide, mon ami.

Ricardo, whom I barely knew thirty years ago, proposed that I work with him on a competition to redevelop the area of the Les Halles in Paris, an open competition, a competition of ideas, a reaction of pride from a profession facing what would turn out to be a foretold disaster, without further challenge than merely showing what would be possible. Every day for two months I went up into his workshop/apartment, his world, where we drew an apocalyptic Paris under the gaze of “Prometheus”, the breasts of “Salome”, “Pig Faces” frieze and “Tetraktys of the Chosen One”, all of his sculptures. Surrounded by models of architectural projects which I never thought could ever be imagined. Didymus who now stands in the center of the workshop had not yet arrived. I was a student in Paris. He taught at Lille. I was discovering a great man, disarmingly kind, of immense humanity and highly cultured, but above all, an incredible creative force who showed me that an architect is above all an artist.

Four years later, I had finished my studies, I had spent two years in the Middle East, and I returned to Paris. He again asked me to join him. He, meanwhile, had met Jean Pierre Lefèvre and hoped to finally be able to build in France. Since he had left Cuba twenty years earlier, leaving behind the revolution and its lost romance, none of his French projects had been carried out. Only a small museum on the banks of the Rhine in Lichtenstein with amazing interior space, a virtual hand of a giant coming out of the mountain to receive a rainfall of gold from the river, showed that the brilliant architect of the art schools in Havana was in Europe.

Much has been said and written about the art schools, and the wonderful film by Alysa Mahmias, "Unfinished spaces", speaks about them much better than I ever could. But I would like to go back to the lesson of creativity, enthusiasm and freedom we received from Ricardo, Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi, and I would like to add about Ricardo, the lesson of ambition and realism. Ricardo had always been realistic and proud. One had to answer with extremely limited resources to the utopian yet categorical demands of the triumphant revolution.

Very few architectural works are born in similar conditions; general disorganization of the economy, political pressure, chronic lack of certain materials, loss of management in companies, etc .... The schools were built, well almost completed. But Ricardo, Garatti and Gottardi did more than that. They looked deeply into Hispanic, African and Caribbean traditions for a new, fresh and pleasurable architectural language to fully express a liberated humanity without using steel but with passion.

It is easy to see that these extraordinary buildings are the fruit of this enthusiastic and romantic time, but what architecture has come out of other revolutions? Popular liberation? Spring uprisings or the fall of a wall? The result is often catastrophic.

In Havana, the three architects did not seek to glorify the revolution and its leader. They made art and architecture. They imposed their humanity, their organic vision of architecture, similar to that of Wright or Scharoun, that is to say, based on the relationship between a site in its natural environment, history and culture, purpose and life. They added their own dream world, and made the walls, vaults and brick domes, creating generous poetic spaces. For some, this vision of architecture is considered to be too personal, artistic, was revolting, as was that of Gaudi, but for those who have lived or worked there, the architecture of these schools truly brought enthusiasm and poetry into their life in a particular period.

Ricardo arrived in France in 1965, I believe, and despite the unfailing support of some, architects such as Claude Parent and journalists such as Marc Emery and Patrice Goulet, for twenty years, the disdain of rationalists, the disbelief and cynicism of materialism, have consistently refused creativity. These same rationalists, at that time, destroyed Baltard’s halls and Guimard’s stations.

The holiday village of Vela Luka, a giant emerging from the Adriatic, the youth center of Vaduz, young man with a vigorous body, the lodgings at Cergy so detailed, thoughtful, complex, human and refined which become trees as an extension of the surrounding park, the two houses Janus, the air and space museum with its fabulous organic and high-tech model which is slowly being devoured by the plants in the workshop, the Villeneuve d'Asc library, mountain, valley and cave, the Gonzalo school, so poetic, only to name the projects with models covering the walls of the workshop. These have been published, admired, often outside France, but never realized. Yet, all of these were buildable, all were functional.

Fortunately, Ricardo was a teacher, and he was able to theorize, develop and express his thoughts, and talk about what architecture means, must say. Convey.

In 1986, Ricardo regained hope and asked me to join him. A pedestrian bridge over the highway leading north out of Paris, a housing complex in Stains and the competition won of the College Elsa Triolet in Saint Denis. First at his home, rue Vergniaud, and then Passage Brady in the little three room apartment squeezed between the sewing workshops in the neighborhood of Le Sentier which seemed to explode as soon as Ricardo entered. We almost had a real architectural firm.

Yet, as well as architecture, we discussed Pina Bausch’s or Merce Cunningham’s contemporary dance, or, theater, Chéreau or the Hamlet of Atreus, Ariane Mnouchkine, films by Tarkovsky, Fellini, Bergman, of literature, Lernet-Holenia, the "Saragossa Manuscript" and "The Magic Mountain", "Dangerous Liaisons" and "Search," for no one better than Proust described all the charm and the emptiness of our social life. We discussed painting, Titian, Vermeer, Wilfredo Lam, Picasso, relatively little abstract, sculpture, the ecstasy of St. Teresa by Bernini, Rodin cast’s, Picasso again, music and opera, Ariadne auf Naxos, The Marriage of Figaro or Lulu, and also food, how to prepare Cuban beans, the recipe for Beef Bourguignon or spaghetti with vodka, walnuts and Roquefort. Because everyone knows that an architect must have read the "Divine Comedy" and know how to cook well. HOMO LUDENS, as Ricardo called himself, expresso coffee after expresso coffee, shared with all those who worked with us, Jean-Christophe, Richard, Sylvain, Alain and the others, his immense culture, and his appetite for life.

But we were talking about architecture, architecture in the singular, because for Ricardo there existed only one architecture, that of artists, of the humanists and poets and of the creators. Imhotep, Hadrian, Isidore of Miletus, Pierre de Montreuil, Boromini, Mansard, Gaudi, Wright, de Klerk, Steiner, Scharoun, Corbu, Renaudie, same struggle! The requirement should be the same. Time, resources, technology, materials are only parameters as are the site, the climate, and culture. To that extent, few contemporaries were up to the task, but Ricardo was always enthusiastic about discovering remarkable architectures. The joy he had in talking about Gotfried Böhm, Renée Gailhoustet, Callatrava Coop Himelblau, Team Zoo or Makovech, largely surpassed the pleasure he had in criticizing others. Yet Ricardo relished starting a controversy, the "there is nothing", affirmed with a definitive tone made an impression on us as he made on his students.

We conducted our projects always following the same ritual: understanding the site, the program, the expectations, organize, and propose different options; looking for possible images and romanticizing; "When I elevate the ordinary, giving the common a mysterious aspect, to the known the dignity of the unknown, to the finished the appearance of infinity, I therefore romanticize." Citing Novalis is certainly the saying Ricardo repeated the most often.

Then, through the composed model, organize and create spaces to the measurement of man: space, always space, but never empty space.

Elsa Triolet, this middle school inspired by doves, the image of understanding and peace, and dwellings in Stains, small excerpt of this communication planning which Ricardo always advocated, then the middle –school Fabien in Montreuil and dwellings at La Courneuve, La Sodedat and Jean Pierre Lefèvre helped us for years. Ricardo and I will always be grateful to them. After, others came after us: Beatrice Melon-Riyé, Jean Philippe Devillers, Katherine Fiumani and Gilles Jaquemot, others found us somewhat by chance, Danièle Lacroix, Marcel Schott, and thanks to their help and support we designed other schools, high school and projects that we never thought we would called upon to realize, special police barracks (CRS), Hospitals and what so delighted Ricardo, an art school.

For each project, Ricardo set off with the same enthusiasm, the same verve. His ideas, his proposals were always so unexpected, so new, often disarmingly fresh, sometimes also complex and ambitious. A fire station in the image of Paulo Uccello’s the Battle of San Lorenzo majestic painting in the Louvres. You still have to conceive it and to build it!

Twenty-five years ago Riccardo told me, "I have lived widely but not in length, I will not do much more." Two years old, in front of the hospital in the Mureaux, he took me aside and whispered, "we still have made some great things." Yes, Ricardo, you have left us a beautiful, powerful, humane, generous and happy architecture.

On December 24th, the eve of his departure, Ricardo told me: "I'm tired Renaud, I'm tired, but you know, life is beautiful! "Yes Ricardo, life is good, especially when one meets exceptional people like you.