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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
About us
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2019-2024 Aureli Mora i Omar OrnaqueDocumental 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 OrnaqueExternal Collaborators:
2019-2024 Lluis Andreu Sergi Ballester Helena Cepeda Inès Martinel Maria Jesús QuinteroWith the support of:
Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de CulturaCollaborating Entities:
ArquinFADFundació 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
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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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Despatx d’arquitectes associats des del 1970. Format per Jordi Garcés Bruses, Barcelona, 1945 i Enric Sòria Badia, Barcelona, 1937. Ambdós són professors a l’ETSAB, i Jordi Garcés també ho és a l’escola EINA. Van coincidir els dos treballant al despatx MBM. Han rebut diversos premis FAD d'Arquitectura. Obres d’ells són, el Museu de la Ciència de Barcelona (1987), l’Hotel Plaza (1990), el Pavelló Olímpic de la Vall d'Hebron (1991) o el Cine IMAX (1996)
Source: Arxiu Històric del COAC
Works (19)
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Chronology (31)
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Ventilation and Entrance Towers to an Underground Water Tank
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
Five turrets rise above an underground tank, rectangular in plan. The four small ones, at the four vertices, ensure the ventilation of the tank. For the larger one, supported on one of its sides, you have access to the machinery and its interior. Its situation within the pass, on a hill, allows the whole to be observed from different points of view, almost always far away - that is why we are interested in artificially increasing all the apparent elements of the set. This double objective is taken care of by the enveloping porticos, the formal role of which has been maximised by resolutely disassociating them from any resistant work, while at the same time accentuating their structural appearance. -
Resintex Industrial Complex
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
A series of warehouses is built to complete the facilities of a textile industry on a narrow and long plot. With the arrangement of these industrial units, an orderly and perfectly aligned set was obtained and a new, round and hermetic main façade that also encompasses the heterogeneous existing constructions. The units, thanks to their constructive conception and the arrangement of all their doors on the internal face, satisfactorily fulfill the fence vision. Access to the interior of the enclosure is via steps between the units. The only old building shares the new alignment, protruding in height and cantilevering above the new material that runs, without interruption, on the ground floor. The warehouses are closed with prefabricated concrete slabs resting on the floor, attached to the structure and protruding above the roof, thus defining a prismatic volume. -
FAD Award
Finalist. Category: ArchitectureResintex Industrial ComplexFAD Award
Finalist. Category: RestorationScience MuseumFAD Award
Finalist. Category: RestorationExtension of the Picasso Museum and Annexation to the Baró de Castellet and Meca PalacesFAD Award
Finalist. Category: Architecture63 Dwellings Pi Molist63 Dwellings Pi Molist
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
The site is located on a half-built island according to an old special arrangement of detached buildings. Despite the current urban classification, it set a building depth of 22 m and a regulating height of 16.70 m (ground floor plus 4 floors), two parallel blocks of double façade were projected, without interior courtyards, which opened to the outside of the street, the centre of the island and the central space between blocks, sheltered at its ends. The houses, except for a few smaller ones, have four bedrooms, two doubles and two singles, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a laundry room, with a usable area of 75 m2. The bedrooms are grouped in the central space covered between blocks, in order to keep it clean and quiet. The portion of the building not occupied by the houses, ground floor and mezzanine, are used for parking and commercial premises. The central space has its origin in the attic level of the ground floor, is covered with a skylight and is used as the general lobby of the building with access at both ends. Inside, vertical communication towers with stairs and lifts are built. The construction has been done with materials of the highest possible quality and best conservation. The façades, always very flat, are made of exposed brick. The windows, large in relation to the interior, are related to each other forming a continuous fabric, due to their similar dimensions, constant construction characteristics and the rhythm of their position.L'Esplai Social Centre for the Elderly
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
Amb total llibertat de situació i forma, la Caixa de Pensions havia de construir un petit edifici per Local-Club Jubilats i Sala de Conferències, en el nou espai urbà obtingut per l'enderroc d'antigues cases fet per l'Ajuntament de La Seu d'Urgell. Aquests terrenys es configuraven, de moment, com a una prolongació de la gran plaça Pati del Palau (Bisbat) que és, ja, un sector urbà de característiques molt diferents de l'immediat superior construït al voltant del gran nucli monumental de la Catedral. Això va ser determinant en la decisió de dibuixar l'edifici en forma angular de manera que crearà un últim espai tranquil i de reduïdes dimensions, final del recorregut monumental i que amb el seu front exterior delimités de nou, de forma clara i exacta, la plaça del Pati del Palau en les seves dimensions originals. La nova placeta està al servei de la petita església de Sant Miquel, del Museu Diocesà i dels usuaris del nou edifici que l'utilitzaran com a exterior annex. En la seva pavimentació s'han seguit solucions utilitzades en la resta del conjunt monumental adaptant mides, nivells i traçats al nou edifici que la delimita. El pas lateral, definit per l'extrem lliure de l'angle, emmarca una nova vista pròxima de la torre i àbsida lateral de l’església de Sant Miquel. L'edifici, en atenció a tot això, s'obra per l'interior de l'angle a la placeta com si fos un mig claustre que es recolza en el costat exterior opac i sobredimensionat per la col·locació de la planta pis, sala de conferències de forma rectangular, amb accés independent des de la plaça gran a través de la galeria lineal adossada. El pla d'aquesta façana manté al conjunt monumental limitat i al mateix temps serveix de pedestal, en les vistes allunyades, per les torres, que al sobresortir anuncien i recorden el sector monumental. Aquestes consideracions urbanes són les que conformen l'edifici i per tant predeterminen i dissenyen els espais interiors dels que són protagonistes les dues galeries que s'obren a la nova placeta. Exteriorment la construcció és de parets d'obra ceràmica manual vista, fusteries metàl·liques i cobertes de pissarra a excepció de la coberta de planxes de coure de la petita galeria adossada d'accés a la planta pis. En els interiors predominen els paraments d'obra ceràmica pintada i les cobertes s'han resolt amb bigues de formigó de secció rectangular i solera ceràmica pintades.Science Museum
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
The Social Work of the "Old Age Pensions and Savings Fund of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands" programmed the conversion of the old asylum building "Amparo de Santa Lucía" into a museum. The building consisted of two sectors. The first, built by the architect Domènech i Estepà between 1904 and 1909, is easily identifiable in the work as a whole. The other, from the 1940s, in the area adjacent to that of Domènech i Estepà, which was the least recoverable due to the small dimensions and layout of the spaces that made it up. Here, the total replacement of the built volume was carried out, which made it possible to reach, with the new work, three primary objectives at the same time: 1. Clarity and slack in the interior distribution of the building. An essential condition in a place like this. 2. Innovative and resounding exterior image very suitable for a building recently added to its public role. 3. Transparency of the building in the central area, which makes it possible to transfer the qualities of the southern exterior to the interior of the building and, consequently, to the main access oriented to the North. On the other hand, we can say that the whole building is made up of a succession of diaphanous rooms, of considerable dimensions, all of them connected to the high-rise central hall and the gardens located to the south of the site.Extension of the Picasso Museum and Annexation to the Baró de Castellet and Meca Palaces
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
Montcada Street is part of Barcelona's old town and is largely shaped by a succession of small palaces from the 13th and 14th centuries. The Picasso Museum occupies five of these palaces, from n. 15 to n. 23 of Montcada Street. The project approaches the urban question, as a starting point, and defines the museum as an element of requalification of the area. The open-air interior courtyards accessible from the street are very important pieces, a parallel central corridor is created to join them. This is how the new merged use of the palaces is ordered and interpreted, a visual order is given to the whole. The establishment of clear corridors leads to all floors a central space representative of the public nature of the building. On the ground floor, the central corridor is transformed into an interior street that adds architectural value to the entirety of the three palaces without spoiling, thanks to its slenderness, the specific characteristics of each of them. This desire to add without taking away is what has prevailed since the general conception. The new elements are superimposed on the existing constructive context in the service of an unprecedented image of the whole.Móra la Nova Primary Healthcare Centre
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
Situat en un entorn de ciutat-jardí, aquest centre sanitari d'aspecte compacte i introvertit s'ha projectat amb cert ordre racional, manifestat en la clara distribució en planta i en unes façanes estrictament ordenades. A l'interior, un espai central dissenyat amb particular interès, acull les sales d'espera de cada planta, les quals reben llum zenitalment. La resta de dependències s'ubiquen perimetralment, seguint una ordenació modular que es correspon amb les finestres. Aquestes es resolen amb un únic model i amb la mateixa obra vista de la façana, de dues tonalitats diferents. L'any 1987 va ser guardonat amb el premi FAD d'Arquitectura.Hidalgo House
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
Detached house on a large sloping plot very well oriented regarding the sun and views that reach the sea. The house is resolved formally with the abstract game of the three volumes and the three large double-height windows that relate to each other through the variable rhythm of their relative positions, giving the image of a privileged vantage point. The external cubic rigidity is diluted in the interior where the space is continuous and fluid, recalling the original geometric composition when encountering the façade planes, which limit the built volume with the presence of their large openings.School of Mural Painting and Arts and Crafts of El Penedès
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
An unfinished building from 1884 that was supposed to be the Hospital of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia has been converted into a School of Mural Painting and School of Arts and Crafts. The nave of the chapel, the central core of the old project, was very suitable for its use as a practical workshop for the muralists. The annex building of very little architectural interest, in poor condition and with many alterations due to its successive uses, could house the classrooms and services of the two centres, which is why they proceeded to demolish and replace all the interior forgings. The new work appears on the outside as the irruption of the current windows that interfere, in its air, with the old order, scratched by a previous work of solidifying the whole that highlights the compactness of the original factory. This feature is possibly the main quality of the existing one. With the new cover of the nave of the chapel, which seeks the correct lighting of its interior, the contrast between the two unusual volumes that make up the whole was accentuated. The additions of white marble aim to accentuate the involuntary tone of unfinished work that the irregular stone ensemble already has and turn it into a statement. With the layout of the two sections of stairs, one through the rear courtyard and the other pointing to the chapel, each of them is given an itinerary of a certain visual interest.FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner (ex aequo). Category: Architecture - Remodelling and RehabilitationSchool of Mural Painting and Arts and Crafts of El PenedèsFAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Buildings of new plant for private useHidalgo HouseFAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Buildings of new plant for public useMóra la Nova Primary Healthcare CentreSalgot House
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
La casa se situa en una plataforma elevada amb vistes obertes al mar. Tota la configuració queda regida per les llargues visuals ininterrompudes que s’inicien ja des de la part oposada. Consta de dos cossos rectangulars, bisellats en l’extrem que apunta al mar. El cos posterior, d’una sola planta, allotja els dormitoris. El cos del davant allotja les zones de dia i un estudi a la planta superior. Aquest cos s’obre cap al nord per crear una terrassa oberta a l’horitzó, filtrat per una pèrgola transversal. La geometria dels recorreguts genera totes les distribucions, de manera que sempre es camina cap al mar o d’esquena al mar.FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Buildings of new plant for private useSalgot HouseOlympic Pelota Pavilion
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Carles Buxadé i Ribot, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Joan Margarit i Consarnau, Enric Sòria i Badia, Rafael Soto
The typology chosen for this project is the result of inscribing the diverse physical and organisational parameters required by the two sports facilities it contains in the simplest possible volume and spatially clearer, in order to obtain optimal results of the correct dimensioning of the gaming rooms and the order of their relative positions. The façades contribute to the abstract character of the whole by projecting them as immense curtains engraved with ordered incidences of interior origin. The metal cover, substantially flat, folds on its own to form the skylights that crown it, and which, oriented to the north, concentrate the natural light on the tracks, breaking with their presence the external hermeticity of the whole. The Municipal Sports Hall is mainly intended for the practice of volleyball, and the Municipal Sports Centre of Pelota, for all forms of Basque Pelota.FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner (ex aequo). Category: Buildings of new plant for public useOlympic Pelota PavilionPlaza Hotel
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
The Hotel Plaza, located in the Plaça d’Espanya, is a fundamental part of the urban operation of the new Tarragona Street, due to its location and the great load of activity and representation. The Hotel has been designed with an annular floor, in the manner of large urban hotels with an extensive Hall, connected to a large inner courtyard equipped with exterior dimensions and qualities. These two pieces act as an internal binder of the wide range of uses that the Hotel contains. On the outside, the resulting volume is enriched with a smooth inflection in the definition of its faces. Freed by its urban situation from the automatism of the alignments, the building finds its own identity in the undulating movement of its façades. A tower of orthogonal composition placed at the corner ends and distinguishes the building and the urban ensemble of the Plaça d’Espanya in which the bullring “Las Arenas” and the entrance portico to the fairgrounds. The six floors above the ground floor and the tower accommodate 338 rooms and 8 suites, one of them with the large clock as a stained window overlooking the square. The four façades are built with prefabricated concrete panels that incorporate granite slabs of two colours, gray and red, and different sizes, on the exterior. The chosen cutting covers the mechanical subdivision of the prefabricated, fleeing from an automatic construction division to approach a textile-stony outlook, with more unified results. The same composition of orthogonal lines solves the carpentry. The large central courtyard’s interior, close to 30 m. x 30 m., has been finished with ceramic materials of five different colours, distributed in a graduated order, from the darkest ones to the lightest ones, in the manner of some modernist courtyards that contrasted their chromatic variation with a stony, stern and urban exterior. The building has four basements, destined for: parking, facilities, services and warehouses.Can Borrell Apartment Building
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
In the centre of an important residential initiative of public promotion and with rectangular plots (100x35 m.) on both sides of the large central square of the new district, 200 homes, 100 on each side, parking lots and commercial premises have been planned. They have followed basic criteria already used in a previous work of housing for public promotion in Dr. Pi i Molist Street, Barcelona (1978): to contribute to the definition of the surrounding urban space with the linearity of the buildings. To arrange parallel linear blocks that define a large central courtyard to which only bedrooms give, avoiding promiscuity and degradation of the common spaces in which services and kitchens open. To design with minimal architectural gestures combined with the quality of construction and materials used. To use vulgar construction means requalified by the superimposition of additional design elements. To experience the theme of the flat façade supporting a repeated distribution of holes. The following points are introduced as novelties, largely thanks to the possibilities offered by the excess measurements of the plots: the movement of the linear blocks close to the central square thus contributing to a greater characterisation of the space public. The cutting and retraction of a segment of the linear block close to the exterior streets singling out the main access. As a result of the two previous decisions, a central courtyard with a variable floor plan is obtained with a particular spatial interest and with measures that become considerable. The treatment with inclined planes of the extreme ends of the blocks to singularise and formally treat the ends of the buildings. The existence of double-height porches to signal the entrances to the buildings from the street and the square. The exhaustive repetition of a single type of window that comes to be located at the ends coinciding with the edges of the building, thus underlining the character of a continuous fabric with the façades. Introduction of an upper cornice that ends the section.FAD Award
Finalist. Category: ArchitectureCan Borrell Apartment BuildingFrancesc Batallé Primary School
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
This Primary Education Centre is distributed over five floors. The ground floor is in a basement situation with respect to the main access, but practically on the same level as Carrer d'Avinguda del Carrilet and the playing fields. The first floor, above the previous one, is the main floor of the school. It has a level entrance thanks to the formation of a large embankment that forms a gentle ramp for the main access. This embankment also allows for the creation of play spaces reserved for pre-school students, and as a barrier to the street, a large heavily landscaped slope. Above this there are two more floors fully occupied by classrooms, and above there is the fourth floor with some additional classrooms, an engine room, the large skylight in the central courtyard, and a large, sheltered terrace. The large central courtyard of the building receives light from an extensive skylight and distributes it to the vestibular areas of each floor, located around the entire perimeter. At the two ends of this courtyard, and consequently, at the ends of the vestibular areas, there are two staircases that connect all the levels of the centre that allow the interior circulation to be split at will. These stairs also receive light from the courtyard, which serves as a constant spatial reference. Adjacent to one of the stairs is an elevator. When the yard reaches the bottom, it expands into a free interior area next to the gymnasium, forming what we know in the school programme as a "porch". This distribution of the plants allows the students to converge in a common space that participates in the lights of the playground when they leave each of their classrooms. This vestibular space, however, is acoustically protected on each floor by a large, glass window. In this vestibular space and in the corner opposite the courtyard we find the spaces for special attention: departments, tutorials, small warehouses, etc., which receive light from the courtyard through windows placed in a very regular and serial manner. We intend that these windows constitute the frame-enclosure where the school's works are permanently exhibited, as showcases of the vestibular common space on each floor, which in this way becomes a small exhibition gallery.Viladrau House
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
Casa situada en un terreny de 4.000 m2 amb bona orientació solar coincidint amb la pendent i les panoràmiques sobre el Montseny. Està construïda en el bancal superior dels tres que conformen la propietat amb un desenvolupament linial que es fracciona i trenca a favor de les millors vistes, de la privacitat entre sectors de la casa i de l’obtenció d’un volum més gràcil. L’accés és des del camí inferior. El cos del garatge i un estudi se separa, respectant la mateixa llei de formació: successió de peces que s’obren totes vers el jardí davanter. La secció també s’obra vers la bona direcció amb un únic pendent de coberta, obtenint-se una important alçada interior al sector proper a la façana principal de la casa. Això permet una major alçada dels balcons. Els materials emprats són: revoc pintat blanc, persianes d’alumini lacades en blanc i teula àrab.Premi Ciutat de Barcelona
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Architecture and UrbanismJordi Rubió i Balaguer AgoraJordi Rubió i Balaguer Agora
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Robert Brufau i Niubó, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Albert Salazar Junyent, Enric Sòria i Badia
In a former military compound, laid out in accordance with the Eixample’s guidelines, the building is placed between two barracks converted into university facilities. It is an underground building looking for its façades. These are obtained through patios in one direction, and by protruding into the outer space, with the right size and in a constant direction, they order the new university complex’s central square, Ágora. Glass enclosures between walls become lights at night. A similarly constructed central skylight presides over the symmetrical space. Two of the courtyards house stairs for direct access to the interior where we find the Central Vestibule of the building itself which also serves as a connection between the two neighbouring university centres. The Assembly Hall and the Exhibition Hall can be accessed from the lobby. All spaces have natural light through patios and skylights. The project is complemented by a continuous strip that contains a circumstantial office of the Rector and the Reflection Room that was built with the painter Antoni Tàpies. The structure is of exposed concrete walls perpendicular to the façades. These are made of glass and are clad in stone in their extension to enclose the roof laterally and protrude into the square. The exterior and interior pavements are also made of stone, except for the bottoms of the patios, which are made of wood.Remodelling of Molina Square
Garcés -Sòria Arquitectes, Jordi Garcés i Brusés, Enric Sòria i Badia
In the project for the reorganisation of Molina Square, several circumstances were taken into account: -It is not a place to stay at, but fundamentally a hub of vehicle and pedestrian traffic. -The architecture that makes it up is of little entity and does not offer common characteristics in relation to public space. - The absence of a clear and structuring direction of the square originating from some alignment, building or topography. -Presence of a large accumulation of elements of street furniture, gardening and installations that saturate the scarce free space. Consequently, the following were decided: -The rationalisation of road traffic and its consequent reduction. -The accumulation of free space for pedestrians in the most profitable place as close as possible to shops, premises, etc. -Economy and order in the placement of urban furniture elements on a common base fabric. -A formal treatment of the pedestrian spaces identical to that of the surfaces containing the urban traffic in order to obtain a unit of greater size and entity-. The surface of the action is 7,500 m². The materials used are asphalt, gravel and grass in the large tree stumps. Standard urban furniture in Barcelona. Monument to the Magazine "Dau al Set" in the form of a granite rock with an embedded bronze plaque.FAD Award
Finalist. Category: ArchitectureExtension of the Picasso Museum and Annexation to Mauri and Finestres HousesArchive
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Drawing
Perspectiva del conjunt de recintes de ventilació i accés al dipòsit d'aigües.
Arxiu Històric del COAC
Bibliography (51)
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