Intro

About

In this first stage, the catalogue focuses on the modern and contemporary architecture designed and built between 1832 –year of construction of the first industrial chimney in Barcelona that we establish as the beginning of modernity– until today.

The project is born to make the architecture more accessible both to professionals and to the citizens through a website that is going to be updated and extended. Contemporary works of greater general interest will be incorporated, always with a necessary historical perspective, while gradually adding works from our past, with the ambitious objective of understanding a greater documented period.

The collection feeds from multiple sources, mainly from the generosity of architectural and photographic studios, as well as the large amount of excellent historical and reference editorial projects, such as architectural guides, magazines, monographs and other publications. It also takes into consideration all the reference sources from the various branches and associated entities with the COAC and other collaborating entities related to the architectural and design fields, in its maximum spectrum.

Special mention should be made of the incorporation of vast documentation from the COAC Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.

The rigour and criteria for selection of the works has been stablished by a Documental Commission, formed by the COAC’s Culture Spokesperson, the director of the COAC Historical Archive, the directors of the COAC Digital Archive, and professionals and other external experts from all the territorial sections that look after to offer a transversal view of the current and past architectural landscape around the territory.

The determination of this project is to become the largest digital collection about Catalan architecture; a key tool of exemplar information and documentation about architecture, which turns into a local and international referent, for the way to explain and show the architectural heritage of a territory.

Aureli Mora i Omar Ornaque
Directors arquitecturacatalana.cat

credits

About us

Project by:

Created by:

Directors:

2019-2024 Aureli Mora i Omar Ornaque

Documental Commission:

2019-2024 Ramon Faura Carolina B. Garcia Francesc Rafat Antoni López Daufí Joan Falgueras Anton Pàmies Mercè Bosch Josep Ferrando Fernando Marzá Aureli Mora Omar Ornaque

External Collaborators:

2019-2024 Lluis Andreu Sergi Ballester Helena Cepeda Inès Martinel Maria Jesús Quintero

With the support of:

Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de Cultura

Collaborating Entities:

ArquinFAD

 

Fundació Mies van der Rohe

 

Fundación DOCOMOMO Ibérico

 

Arxiu Mas

 

Basílica de la Sagrada Família

 

Museu del Disseny de Barcelona

 

EINA Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona

Design & Development:

edittio Nubilum
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We kindly invite you to help us improve the dissemination of Catalan architecture through this space. Here you can propose works and provide or amend information on authors, photographers and their work, along with adding comments. The Documentary Commission will analyze all data. Please do only fill in the fields you deem necessary to add or amend the information.

The Arxiu Històric del Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya is one of the most important documentation centers in Europe, which houses the professional collections of more than 180 architects whose work is fundamental to understanding the history of Catalan architecture. By filling this form, you can request digital copies of the documents for which the Arxiu Històric del Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya manages the exploitation of the author's rights, as well as those in the public domain. Once the application has been made, the Arxiu Històric del Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya will send you an approximate budget, which varies in terms of each use and purpose.

Detail:

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Works

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Constellation

Chronology

  1. Roca Barallat Apartment Building

    Carles Martínez i Sánchez

    Roca Barallat Apartment Building

    Martínez develops a floor with three houses on a site which is irregular and with its façades towards an important road and a small square. The position of the staircase and the lifts, oriented towards the interior courtyard forming a virtual bisector, marks the distribution of the homes, as there are two on one side and a third home on the other. Almost all the rooms face the façade, except for the services and the kitchens, through which small patios are enabled. This fit full of casuistries is translated into the exterior conception of the building through a strong expressionist will, which takes into account the prevailing view from Via Augusta. The second and third floors form a tribune at the corner, while the first floor forms a covered balcony, which is repeated on the fourth floor. The building gently recedes as it rises, at the same time purifying itself and leaving the smooth volumes marked horizontally by the windows from side to side.
  2. Urquinaona Skyscraper

    Luis Gutiérrez Soto, Carles Martínez i Sánchez

    Urquinaona Skyscraper

    Located in the Ciutat Vella district, the Urquinaona skyscraper is a mixed residential and office building. It was projected before 1936, within the functionalist field. Carried out by Luís Gutiérrez Soto, the Madrid architect perfectly reflected the moral crisis caused by the Spanish Civil War. Located between Trafalgar and Jonqueres Streets, on the corner of Plaça Urquinaona, it consists of a double-height ground floor that integrates a mezzanine and thirteen floors. Located on a triangular plot, the building between partitions is formed by a large volume around a central courtyard. This arrangement allows to ventilate all the service rooms and places the vertical communication cores at each of the vertices. Its main façade overlooks the two public avenues and resolves the corner by rounding the chamfer. This façade is divided into smaller volumes that protrude from the plane of the façade and integrate some curved balconies. The main floor appears blown away from the façade line and extends like a tribune running along the entire perimeter. This tribune marks a horizontal component that contrasts with the verticality of the three balcony bodies. It also provides it with a marked character of modernity by having all continuous glass openings without any opaque closures, revealing the entire floor free of load-bearing walls. On the other hand, the height of the mezzanine makes this floor, together with the large stained-glass windows, the same height as the main floor. The façade plan is a strict grid of square windows distributed at a constant rate, without decoration. The gable and roof of the building are resolved by creating a game of volumes where the last three floors participate. It is a solution influenced by the designs that Le Corbusier had already done in blocks of flats. The influence of the aesthetics of the ships of the time is also indicated. Decoratively, it should be mentioned that in the portals and halls on the ground floor there is a very austere decoration of a noucentista/academicist taste. Where this current stands out most clearly is in the decoration of the glazed metal doors in the entrance halls. It is an interesting example of contemporary architecture from the 1930s that reflects the coexistence of a period dominated by academicism with the new rationalist tendencies. The formal coherence of this building, which knows how to resolve the magnitude of its volume and urban integration, should be highlighted. He also found very effective solutions to give the first floors a commercial capacity that was pioneering in its time. It was the first skyscraper built in Barcelona's Eixample. It was popularly called Gratacels de la Plaça Urquinaona because it was the first construction that stood out from the Eixample's own heights.

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