Spanish postmodernist architect Ricardo Bofill dies at 82

FILE PHOTO: Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (L) embraces architect Ricardo Bofill during the inauguration of the new T-1 terminal at Barcelona's El Prat airport in Barcelona, June 16, 2009. REUTERS/Albert Gea/File Photo

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill, designer of dystopian monumental buildings, died on Friday, his assistant told Reuters. He was 82.

During his six-decade long career, Bofill designed a series of monument deemed 'postmodernist' by Architectural Digest magazine that mixed modern materials such as steel and concrete with classic forms and geometries such as columns.

His assistant declined to disclose the causes of his death.

Besides the sail-shaped 29-floor Hotel W Barcelona tower located on Barcelona's beachfront, Bofill is also famous for designing in the seventies and eighties huge social housing projects in French suburbs.

Some of these projects were later used to shoot dystopian movies such as Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' in the 1980s and 'Hunger Games' in the last decade.

(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)