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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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 Eduard Callís Francesc Rafat Pau Albert Antoni López Daufí Joan Falgueras Mercè Bosch Jaume Farreny Anton Pàmies Juan Manuel Zaguirre Josep Ferrando Fernando Marzá Moisés Puente Aureli Mora Omar Ornaque

Collaborators:

2019-2024 Lluis Andreu Sergi Ballester Maria Jesús Quintero Lucía M. Villodres Montse Viu

External Collaborators:

2019-2024 Helena Cepeda Inès Martinel

With the support of:

Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de Cultura

Collaborating Entities:

ArquinFAD

 

Fundació Mies van der Rohe

 

Fundación DOCOMOMO Ibérico

 

Basílica de la Sagrada Família

 

Museu del Disseny de Barcelona

 

Fomento

 

AMB

 

EINA Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona

 

IEFC

 

Fundació Domènench Montaner.

Design & Development:

edittio Nubilum
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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.

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Memory

Arquitecte. Titulat el 1942. El 1990 va ser nomenat membre d’Honor de la Reial Acadèmia de Catalunya de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi, el 2005 premi Catalunya Construcció del Col·legi d’Aparelladors i Arquitectes Tècnics de Barcelona i el 2006 del premi Antonio Camuñas d’Arquitectura. Autor d’un gran nombre d’edificis residencials com el del C. Amigó, 76 (1944) o C. Mestre Nicolau, 15 (1957) així com del Camp Nou del FC Barcelona (1957), o el Banc Atlàntic (1968)

Source: Arxiu Històric del COAC

Works (38)

On the Map

Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works

Constellation

Chronology (41)

  1. Casabó House

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Casabó House

    The house was designed by Mitjans during his time as a student, before the Spanish Civil War, and under the predominant influence of the ideas of the GATCPAC. In the same way as other architects of the time, he starts from a neoclassical scheme, linked to the brick factory, and alters it with absolute freedom, in accordance with the programme and the interpretation of the site. The house rises one floor to favour the sea views. It is accessed tangentially from the terrace, linked to the living room, on the south façade. The west wing is used for bedrooms and is slightly higher than the rest of the house. The east wing contains only the kitchen and service rooms, and leaves room for large terraces that act as a cover for the wheeled access. Five cylindrical pillars protect the terrace from the access on the west side and shape the image of the house seen from the promenade.
  2. Amigó Apartment Building

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Amigó Apartment Building

    It is one of Mitjans’ thorough works which represents the overcoming of his academic stage, in which he incorporates numerous discoveries that will later become characteristic of his work. The standard floor allocates all the rear hall to bedrooms and all the previous corridor to the living spaces, directly linked to a large balcony that runs on both sides of the façade. Inside, corridors are avoided, and a circular route is created around the kitchen, with small areas of transition between spaces of different uses. The treatment of the lobby masterfully combines some elements taken from the past with clearly modern concepts, beyond any ascription to a given historical style.
  3. Ceisa Housing Complex

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Ceisa Housing Complex

    Three members of the same family who lived in the building on Amigó Street commissioned Mitjans to build another larger dwelling, in an isolated building area that allowed the building to be set back to create a front garden. The result is a compact volume, with one apartment per landing, whose main feature is the large terraces on the main façade. The other terraces extend along the lateral façade and are supported by a very light structure of reinforced concrete. The composition of the building is characterised by its cubic shape, with exposed brick walls, and by the garden that surrounds the building, resolved with trees that were already in the place. The entire building was going to be occupied by members of the same family, a circumstance that Mitjans took advantage of to arrange common rooms on the ground floor in direct contact with the garden. The distribution of the houses is developed from a central communications core, around which you can circulate and access all the rooms. In general, Mitjans' housing commissions are not usually minimal, which offers him great plastic possibilities in the treatment of spaces and volumes.
  4. Dr. Soler Roig Clinic

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Dr. Soler Roig Clinic

    Francesc Mitjans had been a student member of GATCPAC and was one of the first architects to "rescue" rationalist architecture after Franco's autarchy. His first project is the residential building on Amigó Street, which can be considered a new architectural manifesto in Barcelona in the 1940s. After this, he would build two other residential buildings and the Soler-Roig clinic, which make up a small architectural ensemble. The gardens that surround the three buildings are part of the project; they are inspired by the English garden and have started from the trees that were already there. The curved plan of the clinic responds to the desire to preserve a hundred-year-old tree that was on the site and incorporate the garden into the project. The composition of the building is cubic, altered by the curved trace of the façades and the slope of the ends. The façades are made of ordinary raw brick painted white, which contrasts with the light green tone of the divisions of the terraces. A lateral wall, in which the main access door to the clinic is located, has been covered with stoneware plates that follow a geometric pattern.
  5. Rubio Dwellings

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Rubio Dwellings

    This isolated residential building is located in front of the Soler-Roig Clinic, which was the first of Mitjans' actions on this street, which would be followed by the CEISA residential buildings and this one. It has a ground floor plus three upper floors, in which there is a single house per landing. It is accessed by pedestrians through an entrance porch that leads to the hall and the concierge. It should be noted that the garden that surrounds the building continues to the interior of the porch, achieving a very intense relationship between architecture and nature. The garage is accessed from one side, by means of a ramp that descends to the basement and turns at the back. Some terraces facing south are arranged in a cantilever on this very ramp, corresponding to the living rooms. On these terraces, a turn has been made at the front and the corners are rounded, as if they wanted to follow the movement of the car as it entered. The twist is repeated on the entrance porch and on the side balconies. The structure consists of exposed brick load-bearing walls. The side walls frame the street façade. The composition of this façade is very interesting and complex: a system of vertical elements, defined by the windows, is combined with a system of horizontal elements, defined by the railings. The horizontal solution is different on each floor: it includes a planter on the first and a gallery on the third.
  6. Camp Nou

    Lorenzo García-Barbón Fernández de Henestrosa, Francesc Mitjans Miró, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Camp Nou

    The project responds to the need to accommodate a growing number of spectators for a football club that is constantly growing and with a greater social projection. The design criteria were based on a critical analysis of the world's major football stadiums. The playing field is below street level, so the ascent to the highest ranks is not so exaggerated. The stands follow a course of four lowered curves in order to guarantee the maximum proximity of the spectators to the field of play. In section, the stadium is organised in three overlapping tiers, to make the most of the vertical occupancy. The first tier rests directly on the ground. The second tier houses the grandstand seats and the most favoured seats, which are the only covered ones. The third tier houses the general seats and grows in height on the side opposite the grandstand. The evacuation is organised by the combination of numerous vertical circulation cores connected by uninterrupted walkways. The Camp Nou applies rationality criteria to the program of a high-capacity stadium, where the spectators are the real protagonists.
  7. Tort Dwellings

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Tort Dwellings

    Building between partitions that follows the criteria learned in Amigó Street, but with a higher degree of abstraction and constructive refinement. The program is developed with one apartment per landing. The distribution is organised by strips: the services area and the communications core are in the central part, while the day and night areas are located on the façades. The structure of load-bearing walls coincides with the distribution by strips of the program, with the particularity that two concrete pillars set back from the façade are used, giving the impression that the building is raised on pilotis. Mitjans reuses the same system of terraces as in Amigó Street, which extend the entire length of the façade. The last slab connects the two dividing walls and generates a framework within which the project is developed. The terraces do not protrude from the plane of the façade, but instead create an empty space that contrasts with the opaque volumes of the other buildings. A double façade of sliding aluminum shutters is superimposed on this enormous void, creating a changing and light image of the building. The dynamism of the façade is complemented by a tilting awning system on the mezzanine and in the attic.
  8. CYT Dwellings

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    CYT Dwellings

    This corner block is made up of three buildings between partitions and has a commercial porch on the ground floor that reinforces the unitary and compact image of a building separated from the ground by pilotis. In the upper volume, the horizontal composition of the railings, the edges of the slabs and the rectangular frame that frames the building and assumes the depth of the porch stand out. The dominant material of the façade is glass, which is usually associated with office buildings but which in this case introduces a technological component, linked to the idea of the machine for living. The author solves the ventilation through practicable windows, alternated with fixed glasses and places a series of galleries in staggered, which are used as terraces and which generate dynamism in the composition of the façade. The solar protection of these voids is resolved by tilting awnings. The material and volumetric forcefulness does not prevent this building from having a balanced scale and proportions in relation to its surroundings. The porch on the ground floor expands the space on the commercial sidewalk, while the trees on the central promenade sift and humanise the radical nature of this proposal.
  9. Tokio Dwellings

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Tokio Dwellings

    This building is completely isolated and has the best orientation towards the interior of the block, where the Jardins Tòquio square is located. Despite its generous dimensions, it only has two flats per landing, with the peculiarity that the attic and the upper attic are grouped together in a single flat, designed especially for the Catalan soprano Victòria dels Àngels. Almost all the characteristics of this building can be related to Le Corbusier's five points of modern architecture, although with some nuances that make it unique. The building is raised on reinforced concrete piloti and the hall is separated from the façades. This hall consists of a glass box, with very large surface panes. It is also separated from the ground, creating a shadow line that reinforces the feeling of lightness of the building. Right at the entrance, there is a fountain with a jet of water that makes a very pleasant sound when you enter. The free floor is manifested through the structure and the generous dimensions of the houses, with the day areas towards the interior of the block. The façade is clad in white stone cladding and, instead of horizontal windows, it has a set of terraces embedded in the volume. The garden terrace begins in the soprano’s attic and extends into the upper attic, protected by a heather enclosure that is visible from the street and produces a very interesting plastic effect, resolved with great precision, as if it were a work of art.
  10. FAD Award

    Finalist. Category: Architecture
    CYT Dwellings

  11. La Ballena Alegre Campsite

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    La Ballena Alegre Campsite

    The campsite is made up of a set of facilities scattered in the coastal pine forest of the Llobregat Delta, a completely flat landscape between the road and the Viladecans beach. During the 1930s, this coastline was the site of the future Ciutat de Repós i de Vacances of the GATCPAC and Le Corbusier. The programme is divided into two parts that correspond to two separate farms, but connected to each other. The most important criterion has been to conceive the campsite as if it were a small city of ephemeral homes with a series of built nuclei that territorially organise the activity of the campers: an entrance nucleus, another nucleus next to the sea, two other secondary nuclei at medium depth, and another more compact nucleus located on the second property. Showers have also been built next to the beach, developed from a previous proposal by the architect Ramon Tort. Most of the pavilions have a unique design, based on their own morphological characteristics, and are unified by construction materials. Currently the facility has stopped working as it is affected by the expansion of the El Prat de Llobregat Airport.
  12. Barcelona Hotel and Novedades Theatre

    Lluís Cantallops Valeri, Francesc Mitjans Miró, Miquel Ponsetí i Vives

    Initially, Ponseti was commissioned for the performance hall and an office building with a curtain wall, but after a short time it began to transform into a project with several clients and several architects. First, Mitjans informed him of the commission for a hotel that would replace the offices. A little later, Cantallops commissioned the one in a parking lot that was half below the theatre, and later an architect from Madrid a luxury shirt shop on the ground floor of the hotel. Miquel Ponseti began to project the current theatre, that was surprising for its modernity, since it broke with the traditional schemes of performance halls. The concrete structure allowed the stalls and the amphitheatre to be larger than normal and the visibility to be perfect from any seat. The hotel's façade stands out, which is a cantilevered concrete frame with an upper and a lateral glass strip with terraces. The rest of the façade consists of a checkerboard of opaque panels and floor-to-ceiling windows. During the process, Mitjans designed a prototype room and had it built life-size with all the finishing touches. Since he didn't like it, he had it torn down to build the final version.
  13. Escorial Apartment Building

    Josep Alemany i Barris, Oriol Bohigas i Guardiola, Josep Maria Martorell i Codina, Francesc Mitjans Miró, Antonio Perpiñá Sebriá, Josep Maria Ribas i Casas, Manuel Ribas i Piera

    Escorial Apartment Building

    The block has established the typical arrangement of buildings lined up along the surrounding streets with large building depths around a central courtyard, which is also buildable in part. The urban planning proposal consisted of breaking this closed scheme and opening up the interior as a public space related to the streets, trying, however, not to contradict the morphological reality of these streets. It was a question of combining three fundamental premises: to improve the hygienic conditions of dwellings in depth that occurred in traditional urbanisation; to integrate the public use of the inner spaces of the building, breaking the formal recidivism of the streets; to maintain, however, the urban character of the adjacent streets that belong to an urban network very characteristic of a Barcelona neighbourhood. That is why two linear buildings were organised following the alignment of two streets and the interior space was opened towards Escorial Street, which has a less local nature. The tall building that accumulates in height a large part of the buildability of the building was in the middle of this space. The housing types are adapted to the obvious general morphological requirement: the linear buildings group paired homes with access by stairs for each of them (of 80 and 90 m2), and the tall building corresponds to homes in two floors with access through longitudinal corridors, (100 m2). The exterior finish of the tall building is concrete and white tile and that of the low buildings is solid brick and ceramic lattices.
  14. Camping El Toro Bravo

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Camping El Toro Bravo

    The El Toro Bravo camping was located in the south of the Llobregat delta, under a large coastal pine forest. In the project report, the architect Francesc Mitjans described the surroundings as a place which was ‘sensibly flat, occupied by a leafy pine forest close to the sea, totally respected in the project, with views of the sea, with sea inlets called El Remolar lagoon and La Vidala lagoon’. The surroundings of the campsite, between marshes and under the coastal pine forest, presented very favourable conditions for a temporary and light occupation. On the one hand, the pine forest provided dense shade from the sun. On the other hand, the horizontal terrain allowed easy adaptation for camping and good accessibility. The architect's main decision was to recognise the values of the environment itself in order to respond to the new needs introduced by the campsite, which could accommodate up to 6,000 travellers. In the project, he defined a series of paths between the pine trees that gave rise to the random layout of the plots. Among these paths, there was an equipped axis that crossed the entire site diagonally, from the access to the sea, and which included the pavilions for common use: access pergola, reception, water tank tower, supermarket, toilets and restaurant with the swimming pools. In 2005 it was closed down due to the expansion of Barcelona-El Prat airport, and is now a natural environment with Plan for Areas of Natural Interest in Catalonia (PEIN) protection.
  15. FAD Award

    Finalist. Category: Architecture
    Seida Building

  16. FAD Award

    Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Architecture
    Escorial Apartment Building

  17. Vidal Folch Office Building

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Vidal Folch Office Building

    Around the 60s, in the midst of the Barcelona School and revisionist Italian architecture with the so-called modern movement, Francesc Mitjans was considered a 'good commercial architect'. Over time, its architecture was perceived as more refined, based on a careful knowledge of Orthodox modernity and Nordic organicism, among others. Mitjans creates an architecture for a new wealthy class, which transcends the fashions and trends of the time, and which is based on a new building model widely spread in the upper areas of Barcelona, giving a very remarkable urban coherence. In this architecture, the façades are exemplary and represent a reflection of very well organised and composed plants with special attention to the design of their details, of high construction quality. The Vidal Folch Office Building, with a façade on Via Augusta and Madrazo and Saragossa Streets in Barcelona, subscribes to this way of doing good construction based on a rational design of the façades and which helps the building preserved in perfect condition, without having undergone singular rehabilitations. Its façades, as well as the overall volume, show, in my opinion, a direct influence of Alvar Aalto's office and residential buildings in Helsinki: the precise treatment of the openings, traced by wooden frames and balustrades; the horizontal stripes of marble; the upper end with a pergola that acts as a filter with the sky... It is a building that only needs care with its maintenance, with nothing more than its epidermal timelessness and interior versatility.
  18. Seida Building

    Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Seida Building

    It is a real estate transaction destined to compensate for the use of the block of flats as a car warehouse. The project proposes a block of 12 modules following a T shape that prevent the incorporation of interior courtyards and that assign a clear orientation towards Sarrià Avenue to the complex. The great length of this façade is regulated by the inclusion of vertical lattice that shades the low lighting, and an alternation in the arrangement of the terraces that increase its dynamism. The whole block is conceived as a rigorous application of the logical principles of concrete structures.
  19. Banco Atlántico

    Santiago Balcells Gorina, Francesc Mitjans Miró

    Banco Atlántico

    Mitjans solves the pattern of the tower inspired by the Pirelli building in Turin, after a meeting with its author, Gio Ponti. However, the structural solution is completely new: four metal pillars located in the floor’s centre of gravity leave the rest completely open and contain all the facilities. The four side screens are also load-bearing, and all the supporting elements are expressed on the outside by a white marble cladding. The two vertical communication cores are located at the ends and ensure evacuation in case of fire. The tower is connected to the Eixample’s fabric through a lower body and reaches up to twenty metres below the ground to house the car park. This is a completely genuine solution for a medium-sized office tower, which strongly characterises the urban landscape of the area.
  20. First Extension of Camp Nou

    Antonio Bergnes de las Casas i Soteras, Francesc Cavaller i Soteras, Juan Pablo Mitjans i Perelló, Francesc Mitjans Miró, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    First Extension of Camp Nou

    The Stadium was inaugurated in September 1957, the first phase being built with just the first two stands and a symmetrical crown. The profile of the Stadium was characterised by the large roof canopy, with a new design adapted by the architects to the conventional techniques of the time. It was not until 1982, already under the presidency of the ineffable Josep Lluís Nuñez, when the original asymmetry of the Stadium was completed with the third tier for the celebration of the World Championship for National Teams. The project for this second phase was carried out by Mitjans and Soteras, together with Juan Pablo Mitjans, son of the first, and Francisco Cavaller, nephew of the latter. The final construction was characterised by the assembly of an envelope of slats around the entire perimeter of the building, and by the inclusion of the body of ramps on the east façade, originally independent, within the volume of the third tier. These ramps, hanging taut from the rear façade, increase the presumed drama of the complex, even at the cost of eliminating the value of the original project as a mediating element. In 1994, due to UEFA regulations, the first tier was adapted, moving the spectators from standing to sitting. This change involved lowering the level of the playing field by almost 3 metres, with the inevitable consequences on the isoptics of the Stadium. The stoic spectacular nature of the original vision of the Stadium and its access to the grandstand on a ramp from the curved geometry car park located in Arístides Mayol, was gradually disfigured from 1957 with the appearance of a crude constellation of buildings. Among them, the beautiful dome of the Palau Blaugrana still shines with its own light, unfortunately currently condemned to demolition, carried out by Soteras together with Cavaller and the engineer Florencio del Pozo. Its less fortunate exterior volumetry clumsily intermingles between a group of banal auxiliary buildings. The set, far from the mythical category of the stadium, ruins the symbolic access to the building. Also, the additions made to the west façade, including the current museum headquarters, with similar authorship, do not help to not deny the hypothesis of the existence of a genetic component in the quality of an architect. Architectural knowledge, and this is even more visible when intervening in a pre-existing building, is probably of doubtful hereditary character. It is acquired with effort, dedication, perseverance, and even though it may not be fashionable today, with high doses of humility and willingness to serve society. More than fifty years later, the Camp Nou maintains its stoic dignity and functionality as a stadium. Another question is whether it is the right set for broadcasting a football match, when the viewer becomes part of the show. Or when the ancient temple of sport is transformed, biblically, into a market. Well, into a mall.

Archive (7)

  • Perspectiva seccionada de la planta baixa dels Habitatges Balmes.

    Drawing

    Perspectiva seccionada de la planta baixa dels Habitatges Balmes.

    Arxiu Històric del COAC

  • Perspectiva exterior del Camp Nou

    Drawing

    Perspectiva exterior del Camp Nou

    Fons Quaderns d'Arquitectura i Urbanisme / Arxiu Històric del COAC

  • Axonometria dels Habitatges Tokio.

    Drawing

    Axonometria dels Habitatges Tokio.

    Arxiu Històric del COAC

  • Axonometria de la planta baixa de l'Edifici d'Oficines Telefónica

    Drawing

    Axonometria de la planta baixa de l'Edifici d'Oficines Telefónica

    Arxiu Històric del COAC

  • Axonometria de la planta baixa de l'Edifici d'Oficines Telefónica.

    Drawing

    Axonometria de la planta baixa de l'Edifici d'Oficines Telefónica.

    Arxiu Històric del COAC

  • Perspectiva del l'Estació de servei del càmping 'La Ballena Alegre'.

    Drawing

    Perspectiva del l'Estació de servei del càmping 'La Ballena Alegre'.

    Arxiu Històric del COAC

  • Perspectiva de l'accés al Càmping 'La Ballena Alegre'.

    Drawing

    Perspectiva de l'accés al Càmping 'La Ballena Alegre'.

    Arxiu Històric del COAC

Bibliography (61)

Routes & Notes (4)

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