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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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
Suggestions

Suggestion box

Request the image

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:

* If the memory has known authorship or rights, cite them in the field above 'Comments' .

Remove * If the photographs has known authorship or rights, cite them in the field above 'Comments'.
You can attach up to 5 files of up to 10 MB each.

Memory

Arquitecte. Titulat el 1979. Estudià a l’ETSAB i a la Universitat de Columbia. Va formar estudi amb Carme Pinós de 1982 a 1990, realitzant obres com el Cementiri d’Igualada, premi FAD 1991 o l’ Escola la Llauna (1986). Del 1990-1994 s’establí pel seu compte i l’any 1994 formà estudi amb Benedetta Tagliablue, realitzant obres com el Mercat de Santa Caterina (1997-2005), o el Parlament d’Escòcia (1999-2004)

Source: Arxiu Històric del COAC

Works (18)

On the Map

Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works

Constellation

Chronology (31)

  1. Pergolas in Major Square

    Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat

    Pergolas in Major Square

    These roofs are the first step to make the square possible again, to create a new centre defined by its shadows. Now, these roofs attract the eye and are the place to start thinking about the next interventions. The construction mechanism is identical to its drawing: a main beam in successive contractions forms the surface on which to support each of the roofs. A pillar is the support of two of these. Finding a line inside, following it as if it were a path... then, the most elementary geometry is formed, the one that follows someone's impulses. We find inside what we call a project.
  2. La Llauna Secondary School

    Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat

    La Llauna Secondary School

    L’institut La Llauna és un projecte d’Enric Miralles i Carme Pinós de rehabilitació i adequació d’una fàbrica de principis del segle XX —La Fàbrica Gottardo de Andreis Metalgraf Española, coneguda popularment com “La Llauna”— per a convertir-se en un Institut d'Educació Secundària a Badalona. Una de les estratègies més destacables del projecte és el seu posicionament respecte a la preexistència. Es fa un esventrament a l’edifici en certs punts clau per millorar-ne la qualitat dels espais i la relació entre ells, així com per destacar la intervenció dins l’edifici original. En altres punts, però, el construït queda simplement despullat o fa de base per l’addició de nous volums que generen nous espais. El resultat és una intervenció que respecta la preexistència resignificant-la i fent-la partícip del nou funcionament de l’edifici. L’accés, situat al carrer Sagunt, és un dels exemples de l’estratègia explicada. Aquest es configura a través d’una gran porta corredissa metàl·lica que dibuixa una corba a terra amb la seva obertura. Aquesta s’encaixa en una franja vertical en façana formada per obertures en les plantes superiors, buidant la façana original i destacant l’entrada al nou institut a través d’aquest nou encaix. L’accés dona pas a una gran planta baixa lliure, que es dissenya com l’espai ampli que li manca al carrer per on s’accedeix a l’institut, deixant-hi únicament l’estructura original de la fàbrica i arraconant a tota una banda els serveis imprescindibles com la consergeria o la secretaria. Aquest disseny de la planta baixa com a nou espai públic, es veu reforçat per la col·locació d’elements típicament urbans com fanals o aparcaments per a bicicletes. A través de la planta baixa es pot accedir al nucli d’escales; per la banda on queden els serveis com la consergeria, directament a través d’unes escales, i per la banda d’aquest nou espai lliure, a través de tres grans rampes que complementen l’experiència desitjada en aquest gran espai i s’aturen a l’alçada de les bigues de gelosia que aguantaven el forjat. A partir d’aquest punt, unes escales continuen l’accés fins al hall situat en la planta primera dissenyat com punt de reunió entre les aules, situades en la primera i segona planta. El hall es presenta com un espai ampli a doble alçada gràcies al buidatge dels forjats, que permet establir relacions visuals amb els pisos superiors i inferiors, esdevenint un balcó sobre l’entrada. Els materials utilitzats en la intervenció en són principalment tres: bloc de formigó, ferro i fusta; essent els dos primers materials ja presents en l’edifici original i deixant la fusta com a element que aporta calidesa i domesticitat als espais, i que trenca més amb l’estètica típicament fabril. Així, els blocs de formigó s’utilitzen principalment en els nous tancaments interiors, mentre que el ferro s’empra per a l’estructura dels elements més lleugers i recolzats en l’estructura original com les escales o el dispositiu d’entrada. La fusta complementa en moltes ocasions l’estructura metàl·lica configurant els graons, les baranes o inclús el paviment, i també s’utilitza per elements com els bancs.
  3. FAD Award

    Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Interior Design
    La Llauna Secondary School

  4. The New Igualada Cemetery

    Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat

    The New Igualada Cemetery

    El cementiri és concebut com un parc, com “la casa dels vius”, un lloc on gaudir del sol i la tranquil·litat qualsevol dia de la setmana. La configuració del parc aprofita un promontori del terreny per fer-hi un trau longitudinal i crear un recorregut de baixada en ziga-zaga, fins a arribar a un rierol situat uns metres més avall. El projecte complet preveia els tres braços de la ziga-zaga, si bé en la primera fase només se n’ha construït un i s’insinua el començament del segon. Els nínxols es disposen a banda i banda del recorregut formant terrasses intermèdies. Uns passos transversals faciliten l’accés a les terrasses laterals, generant un moviment d’ascensió i de descens carregat de connotacions al·legòriques. La construcció dels grups de nínxols es fa sempre amb peces prefabricades de formigó, com també els revestiments dels murs de contenció. El resultat és que els morts es troben sempre sota terra, i els visitants del parc baixen fins al nivell inferior fins a situar-se al mateix nivell dels morts. La capella se situa a l’entrada del recorregut, induint a un ritual que comença amb el funeral i baixa fins a cada nínxol. Enric Miralles és enterrat en un dels panteons que voregen la plaça que marca el gir entre el primer braç i el segon.
  5. Premi Ciutat de Barcelona

    Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Architecture and Urbanism
    Archery Range

  6. FAD Award

    Award-Winner / Winner (ex aequo). Category: Buildings of new plant for public use
    The New Igualada Cemetery

  7. Archery Range

    Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat

    Archery Range

    The archery facilities are, in fact, the training facilities of this sport built for the 1992 Olympic Games. The competition facilities were on the other side of Granja Vella Street, originally built by the same architects but currently gone. The surviving building is one of the clearest tributes to Park Güell ever built. Like the park, it is configured from the retaining walls that support and limit the upper pedestrian walkway. These retaining walls bend and work organically based on the athletes’ movements as they train. The building consists of covering one of this wall’s folds with a folded roof, an extension of the upper landscape. Mechanical ceramics, together with concrete and cement, form the unique material of the whole intervention. The structures look unstable, crooked, or twisted, depending on the pushing force of the lands they contain. A system of porches covers much of the retaining wall that forms the building, extends it externally, blurs its limits and protects the dry stone that forms them. The roofs have an approximate modulus of the wall’s height and are made up of a series of concrete slabs that slide together with a series of lower gutters that collect and conduct water towards some practiced puddles in the pavement. The interior of the building is paved with curved and exposed ceramic walls that form the dressing rooms and leave the common areas against the back wall. It forms a “landscape that looks at itself”, said Enric Miralles, which is illuminated zenithally through the cracks in the roof and leaving spaces of great beauty, although a little degraded today. The vegetation has been growing from the time when the construction was built until the present day, and it confuses the buildings with a renaturalised environment that introduces additional complexity to the complex.
  8. Hostalets de Balenyà Civic Centre

    Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat

    Hostalets de Balenyà Civic Centre

    El programa requeria incloure les dependències pròpies d’un centre cívic en un solar de la perifèria dels Hostalets de Balenyà. Miralles i Pinós conceben un edifici que dóna l’esquena al poble i creen una façana transparent que genera un espai públic propi, a l’altra banda del carrer. Les dependències més petites del programa (tallers, aules, despatxos) es col·loquen penjades a les plantes superiors, formades per un sistema de bigues de gelosia que s’obren en ventall i que tenen l’alçària d’una planta. Aquest ventall determina el jardí interior i el gran buit que queda a sota, que és una sala d’actes per a 300 persones. El programa és interpretat de forma jeràrquica i en combinació amb la lectura del lloc, de manera que l’edifici podria allotjar programes amb un repartiment semblant. Les escales d’accés a les golfes abracen l’edifici per totes dues bandes, una per l’interior i l’altra per l’exterior.
  9. La Mina Social Centre

    Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat

    La Mina Social Centre

    It is an attempt at a construction on a grand scale. These rooves that here are floors and balconies, might be rooves of a garden: it is a construction that makes the necessity of thinking of the the building envelope disappear... The upper surface of concrete solves the problem of the acoustic deficiencies and the room and gives a new dimension to this place to achieve a scenic space where the positions of the actor and public are interchangeable. The balconies are possible places of representation, but also walking arcades. In between the pillars looks like the best place to position the panels of the exhibitions. One should visit this place like the annexe of a local park and for this reason the calligraphy goes out to the exterior.
  10. Garau-Agustí House

    Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat

    Garau-Agustí House

    This house is mainly a wall, shaped by the movements of the furniture which tries to find its correct position into the room. The interior of a room! The delicate movements of the furniture then enter the garden which forms a continuity with the interior of the house. The back of the house runs on the limit of the urbanistic permission of the piece of land. This limit is the edge used to support the geometry of the house, which finds its place into the strict limitations of the soil. The real façade of the house is in the back, where an important piece of garden grows beneath the perimetral walls of the house and of the garden.
  11. FAD Award

    Finalist. Category: Interior Design
    La Mina Social Centre

  12. FAD Award

    Finalist. Category: Architecture
    Hostalets de Balenyà Civic Centre

  13. Camy-Nestlé Industrial Overpass

    Enric Miralles i Moya

    Camy-Nestlé Industrial Overpass

    The programme called for the construction of a bridge that would serve as a connection between two buildings of the same factory separated by one of the streets of the industrial estate. The bridge allows the passage of employees and the provision of two conveyor belts for packaged material, electrical conduits and power conduits for cold processes. The structural section groups the different loads and offers a specific solution for each one, taking into account the lags caused by load variations. The pedestrian crossing is formed by a section of post-tensioned concrete that supports a system of prefabricated elements that allow light to enter.
  14. Mercaders House

    Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue

    Mercaders House

    House in the old town of Barcelona. Behind a false wall with a series of Gothic arches, a capital in the shape of an angel emerged, with its index finger indicating the heart... It has been a job of cleaning, approaching and discovering the intensity of the use of the construction… Always the same walls... and floors, used and reused from the Gothic era to today... Learning to live with a given structure, like looking inside the pockets of an old coat, depositing found things on a clean surface... This house works like a chessboard. The pieces move according to the rules of each object... They always have to return to the starting point to start the game again... In this sense, the floor, which repositions the existing pieces in front of the windows, or the painting of the walls that reveals the fragments found, are the rules of the game... Tables, books and chairs move in an orderly manner between them...
  15. La Clota House

    Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue

    La Clota House

    The Clota district, close to the Vall d’Hebron, is one of the few places in Barcelona where we can still find some orchards and agricultural buildings on the ground floor and the first floor. The project addresses the renovation and merging of two of these buildings to form a single dwelling. The existing spaces had very small dimensions, which is why some holes have been opened in the various rooms and natural light has been allowed to enter. The structure of the existing buildings has been maintained, although the slab of one of the two houses has been emptied to double the height of the library, and a new façade has been built in the garden in order to expand the house a little bit. The resulting house combines pre-existing elements and new additions in such a way that they are indistinguishable, simulating the reform of the new facings or by the materials’ finishing touches. The new construction procedures used mimic the procedures of the old houses and some structural elements are visible, such as the wooden crossbeams of the library’s casting.
  16. FAD Award

    Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Interior Design
    La Clota House

  17. Diagonal Mar Park

    Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue

    Diagonal Mar Park

    The park is the backbone of the various housing complexes that make up Diagonal Mar. It organises the huge plot, a few blocks long, that forms the group of housing complexes that Diagonal Mar constitutes by means of a counterdiagonal perpendicular to Diagonal Avenue, as a reserve of space that connects the buildings rear with the sea, across the plot, by means of a bridge that has not yet been built. Groundwater (already present on the ground) is the park's guiding thread. The entire northern part, up to Taulat Street, is arranged around a lake with an irregular outline, on several levels and with waterfalls between them that oxygenate the water and prevent it from oxidising. Fountains with an almost calligraphic design, consisting of galvanised metal profiles folded in on themselves in an almost vegetal grouping, spray water and make the northern beginning of the park unique, as well as its contact with Diagonal. The park presents a series of circuits for pedestrians at various speeds, like walks, which allow you to enjoy the free space it creates. The most prominent feature consists of exuberant vegetation, mostly native, which includes more than 35 different species of trees and an enormous variety of carpeting shrub species, some of which are within the lake itself. Pergolas of a unique design contribute to shading the living and playing areas, by means of low-height vegetation (such as vines and asparagus) that grows on metal mesh and forms natural umbrellas over the heads of the users. The fences of the park are not arranged around the perimeter of the park but create pockets that tend to confuse the inside and the outside, passing through the middle of the flowerbeds and leaving parts of the park outside, on the street. The complex is very pleasant to stroll through, colourful and sensual in the tradition of the best modernist parks in Catalonia. It is very different from the rest of the parks designed in the country in recent years.
  18. FAD Award

    Award-Winner / Winner (ex aequo). Category: Outdoor Spaces
    Els Colors Park

  19. Premio Década

    Award-Winner / Winner
    Pergolas on Icària Avenue

  20. FAD Award

    Finalist. Category: Outdoor Spaces
    Diagonal Mar Park

  21. Premi Ciutat de Barcelona

    Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Architecture and Urbanism
    Remodelling and Rehabilitation of the Old Santa Caterina Market

  22. Gas Natural Headquarters

    Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue

    Gas Natural Headquarters

    The building recovers the former grounds of the Gas Company, which has been converted into a park presided over by the new headquarters. The new tower is decomposed into four well-differentiated bodies, with the aim of assuming its uniqueness and establishing a dialogue with the elements of the environment: the passage of the coastal belt, on one side, and the low houses on the other side. These four volumes have a name that identifies them: the tower is the tallest, H-shaped volume, formed by the union of two narrower bodies of different heights. The bracket is a body attached to the tower that, through its lower surface, marks the entrance to the entire building. The aircraft carrier is a long, low, cantilevered body that restores the tower’s ladder horizontally and faces the entrance, along with the corbel. The fourth body is the waterfall, a volume attached to the ground with a stepped façade that restores the staircase of the surrounding buildings. All four bodies are articulated as parts of the same conception, and the glass enclosure of each part collects the shadows of the neighbouring bodies, in a game of transparencies and reflections that give rise to an unreal and dematerialised image.
  23. Enric Miralles Library

    Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue

    Enric Miralles Library

    Some books and a dream... The building is a construction in a garden… It does not keep any memory Of the institutional nature of libraries. ….They are walls that perhaps were in this place. We have been trying through different paths To give the library a maze type of gravity. A series of rooms and gardens assembled in a non-linear way. The building is an experiment that uses each development of the project… Its continuous changes and variations, As well as the authority to accept the result… Just a curiosity: The Isozaki Sports Palace is Our neighbour. And Palafolls, led by its mayor Valentí Agustí, is building a city where he asks us architects to build according to our dreams.
  24. EU Mies Award

    Nominated
    Gas Natural Headquarters

  25. FAD Award

    Finalist. Category: Architecture
    Enric Miralles Library

Audiovisual

  • 1987 - Enric Miralles - Conferencia tarda (14.12.1987)

    2:29:57

    1987 - Enric Miralles - Conferencia tarda (14.12.1987)

  • Enric Miralles. Ensenyar Aprendre

    1:26:52

    Enric Miralles. Ensenyar Aprendre

  • Homenatge a Enric Miralles, amb Beatriz Colomina i Mark Wigley

    1:38:34

    Homenatge a Enric Miralles, amb Beatriz Colomina i Mark Wigley

  • Homenatge a Enric Miralles, amb Soraya Smithson, Joan Roig i Benedetta Tagliabue

    59:26

    Homenatge a Enric Miralles, amb Soraya Smithson, Joan Roig i Benedetta Tagliabue

Bibliography (120)

Societies

Bústia suggeriments

Et convidem a ajudar-nos a millorar la difusió de l'arquitectura catalana mitjançant aquest espai, on podràs proposar-nos obres, aportar o esmenar informació sobre obres, autors i fotògrafs, a més de fer-nos tots aquells comentaris que consideris.