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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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
Project by: 
Created by: 
Directors:
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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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.
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Memory
Arquitecte, urbanista, professor i teòric de l’arquitectura. Titulat el 1928. Fou un dels membres fundadors del GATCPAC. A causa de la Guerra Civil es traslladà als EUA, on desenvolupà gran part de la seva obra.
Source: Arxiu Històric del COAC
Works (21)
On the Map
Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works
Constellation
Chronology (23)
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López House
It constitutes a personal interpretation of the housing concept inherited by Le Corbusier. The houses are organised on two levels, with independent accesses. On both floors, a small central distributor gives access to all rooms. Downstairs there is the living room, dining room, kitchen, a bedroom and the restroom areas. The rest of the bedrooms are upstairs, plus a gallery that surrounds the living room and leads to the small balcony in the corner. The organisation in duplex housing is reflected in the façade, which alters the conventional scale and proposes a more dignified image of urban housing. -
Roca Jeweller's
During the 1930s, Barcelona was carrying out a process of internationalisation of Catalan culture and Passeig de Gràcia was becoming the most elegant and prestigious promenade of the moment. Rogeli Roca, who was a jeweler very interested in contemporary design and avant-garde movements, decided to move the family jewelry store that was located on Les Rambles, in front of the Liceu Theatre, and take it to the corner of Passeig de Gràcia with Gran Via. He was a friend of Sert's and entrusted him with the project. This is a good example of how to intervene courageously in an existing building, although current regulations would not allow such an action to be proposed due to the protection of the Eixample. Sert's proposal is radical and consistent with the possibilities offered by the metallic structure of the building, which remained hidden under the neoclassical façades of the Eixample. The new façade is completely freed from the restrictions of the load-bearing walls and is conceived as a light enclosure. A translucent skin, executed with polished and reflective materials, which radically contrasts with the matt texture and opacity of the render. This façade caused much controversy in the society of the moment. -
Josep Maria Folch i Torres School
GATCPAC, Josep Lluís Sert, Josep Torres Clavé
The Republican Generalitat was very sensitive to the GATCPAC proposal to define new standards that would facilitate the massive implementation of schools throughout Catalonia and some prototypes that responded to this objective began to be promoted. This is the case of the Folch i Torres School Group, which had been proposed as a prototype for early childhood education schools: it was conceived from a functional and repeatable module that allowed the schools to be sized and expanded depending on the number of students. This group was made up of two modules (two schools) that, anticipating a possible expansion, were built at one end of the site, leaving the sides free for the future connection. In the 1950s, an extension was made to the west façade, without respecting the original system of identical modules. The GATCPAC promoted a series of architectural concepts that had to be taken into account when building a school: space and furniture proportionate to the dimensions of the child, good orientation and easy connection of the classrooms with the outside, good ventilation and maximum lighting. The schools of Palau were built with these premises. -
Bloc House
GATCPAC, Josep Lluís Sert, Joan Baptista Subirana i Subirana, Josep Torres Clavé
It is a recreation of the proposal for à redent housing, formulated by Le Corbusier in 1922 for an urban fabric with a density of 300 inhabitants per hectare and luxurious housing. The GATCPAC project, aimed at social housing, also places the complex in a north-south direction, so that housing is always oriented to the south and east. Each home is accessed via a long, covered corridor that is always on the north and west side. The blocks, long and narrow, are solved with a metal structure of two passages. The ground floor has a covered terrace in front of the living room. Upstairs, each pair of bays has three bedrooms, so the central bedroom is compensated. The resulting density is 1,140 inhabitants per hectare, much lower than that of traditional urban fabrics on closed house squares. -
Grup Escolar Els Convents
En 1935, Sert proyectó dos edificios escolares para el Ayuntamiento de Martorell: el grupo escolar Montserrat, en el barrio de Can Carreres, y el grupo escolar Els Convents, en el huerto del antiguo Convento de los Capuchinos. El grupo Els Convents tiene una planta en L que deja el patio de juegos orientado a sur, contra la montaña. Está formada por tres módulos (tres escuelas) unidos por un pasillo en L que pasa de un lado al otro del edificio, según la orientación. El volumen tiene dos plantas y se apoya sobre un gran muro de piedra que sirve de contención. Sert defendía el hormigón armado como material básico de construcción para cumplir las exigencias que imponía la funcionalidad, negando la aplicación gratuita de elementos ornamentales. A finales de los años sesenta la construcción de la autopista A-7 perjudicó una parte importante de los espacios abiertos del grupo Els Convents y se realizaron algunas modificaciones posteriores en el lado sur del edificio. También se derribó la casa del conserje, obra de Sert. Son uno de los pocos ejemplos que quedan de las construcciones escolares de Sert, lo que les da una especial importancia y hace imprescindible su recuperación. -
Can Xifré Segell Preventive Pro-Child School
This school was built as an annex to the old Can Xifré hospital for children with tuberculosis, but it never functioned due to the Spanish Civil War. It is currently the headquarters of the Salvador Espriu Documentation and Studies Centre. The building is made up of two educational modules, separated by an access bay, with a distributor and services. Five corridors in total - each one is covered by a Catalan vault that no longer rests on load-bearing walls, but on girders, which increases the width of the space. It is a white building, with abstract and forceful volumetry, typical of the CIAM, which rests on a stone plinth. The classrooms open onto a terrace facing south, which is used for outdoor classes and is protected by a concrete slab that follows the aesthetics of machinery, like the wing of an airplane. The commission was carried out by the Segell Proinfància, an organisation created during the Second Republic, in 1933, which had the mission of raising money for the construction and maintenance of buildings dedicated to the prevention of tuberculosis. The money raised came from the sale of stamps during Christmas. -
Tuberculosis Clinic
GATCPAC, Josep Lluís Sert, Joan Baptista Subirana i Subirana, Josep Torres Clavé
The building, intended to cover a sanitary need that was very common at the time, does not meet the street alignments but is organised into two parallel bodies oriented from east to west and articulated in an L shape. You enter the enclosure through a semi-public garden that gives direct access to both bodies. The block on the north side contains the surgeries, laboratories and archives. The body at the bottom of the site houses the conference room and the library on the upper floors. The layout of all the rooms, the circulation system and the treatment of the façades respond to a rigorous monitoring of the program and the solar abacus, regardless of the constraints of the location. It is a model of inserting the concepts of rationalism into a fabric that is not taken into account, and which is implicitly criticised for the strict functionality of the building itself. -
Les Escales Park
Josep Anglada Rosselló, Daniel Gelabert i Fontova, José Ribas i González, Josep Lluís Sert
The project was carried out in two phases, as it was necessary to dispense with some initially designed blocks and compensate for the available buildability on a smaller plot of land. The set consists of the aggregation of a repeated unit containing two duplex dwellings. Each unit has two blind walls on either side that allow aggregation with the neighbouring unit. The living room is on the sunny façades, arranged in an L and with a large, covered terrace in front. The kitchens, dining rooms and service galleries are on the north façades. The bedroom floor is accessed via a staircase in the side wall, accompanied in some cases by a gap above the living room. The combination of symmetry with seriality or the system of unit aggregation reflects an interpretation of the concepts of rationalism that is typical of the 1960s. -
FAD Award
Finalist. Category: ArchitectureJoan Miró FoundationFAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: ArchitectureLes Escales ParkJoan Miró Foundation
Josep Anglada Rosselló, Daniel Gelabert i Fontova, José Ribas i González, Josep Lluís Sert
It is the most significant exponent of Sert’s work in Barcelona during his American phase. The museum space is conceived as a circular route around a courtyard that links several spaces of not very large dimensions, and with a clear discrimination of their functions. The route folds over itself in search of the longest dimension and invites the visitor to the slowness or stillness in the contemplation of the works. The specific lighting of each area combines the zenithal light, distributed and nuanced, and the light coming from the glazed enclosures, which offer a certain visual contact with the surrounding garden. In addition to the central courtyard, two more courtyards, to the north and to the east, relate the Foundation’s space to the panoramic view of the city. The roof is also understood as an exhibition space. The entire wall system is made up of concrete screens that leave the joints between the load-bearing reinforcements and the enclosures -which are prefabricated- visible. It is a conception of the museum space that puts all the attention in the relationship between a certain type of work and the architectural environment, a synthesis between art and architecture that was one of the most pursued milestones by a whole generation of modern architects.Archive
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Drawing
Diorama del Pla Macià.
© Fons Josep Torres Clavé / Arxiu Històric del COAC
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Drawing
Perspectiva del Dispensari Antituberculós.
Arxiu Històric del COAC
Bibliography (200)
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