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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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

Works (15)

On the Map

Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works

Constellation

Chronology (19)

  1. 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.
  2. FAD Award

    Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Architecture
    Mare Güell Student Residence

  3. Santa Rosalia Apartment Building

    Lluís Cantallops Valeri, Ferran Galí i Casademont

    Santa Rosalia Apartment Building

    In 1971, the Carmel hill had been transformed into a suburb populated by a series of buildings built without any order or concert, on a convoluted road layout, with a volumetric arrangement of improvised heights on an allotment of small plots of land on very steep slopes. The urban landscape was distressing. The possibility of intervening on a lot with more than 100 metres of frontage, in a street with a relatively level ground, allowed the project to be oriented as a constructed curtain-screen that would give a certain formal order to this sector of the neighbourhood that was being consolidated. The exposed brick façade, with the small tribunes with concrete sills and the windows, with the wooden shutters, gave the whole a certain order of composition. The roof gauge, used to the maximum extent permitted by the ordinance, contributed to the screen effect.
  4. Balay Offices and Showroom

    Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, Lluís Cantallops Valeri, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur

    Balay Offices and Showroom

    The necessary identification of these offices in the chaotic environment in which they are located is solved by covering the entire surface of the façade with metal plate painted bright red, which is the colour of the firm. Inside, there are cozy brown offices and sexy red appliances.
  5. Mobles Pilma Shop

    Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, Lluís Cantallops Valeri, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur

    Mobles Pilma Shop

    The old market slatted roof protects the continuous storefront on the ground floor. Together with the central entrance door, the singular elements are: the glazed freight elevator, the ladder to the deck and the sign.
  6. FAD Award

    Finalist. Category: Interior Design
    Balay Offices and Showroom

  7. FAD Award

    Finalist. Category: Interior Design
    Mobles Pilma Shop

  8. SUER Apartment Building

    Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, Lluís Cantallops Valeri, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur

    SUER Apartment Building

    The blind walls of the partitions frame the large open courtyard - with the staircase, the elevator, the galleries and the access bridges to the homes - and are seen with greater dignity despite their absurd presence due to the abrupt change in heights in the same block, as permitted by the mandatory urban planning regulations.
  9. Traci Building

    Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, Lluís Cantallops Valeri, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur

    Traci Building

    The building is located in an industrial area of constructions between partitions and with a north-south orientation in its major axis. The first four floors are occupied by a perfume industry with access from the ground floor via a ramp between the unloading docks. The remaining five floors are free floors for rent and have independent accesses. To obtain greater freedom of use, all services and vertical communications have been located along one of the side walls and close to the street. The two rows of pillars in the centre of the building make it possible to place a corridor that leads to the general fire escape, at one end, and a heavy goods entrance door at the other. The lobby of the perfumery factory receives zenithal light through a courtyard, while housing the stairs and the private elevator and illuminating all floors through glass-block windows.
  10. FAD Award

    Finalist. Category: Architecture
    Traci Building

  11. Social Housing Complex in Canovelles

    Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, Lluís Cantallops Valeri, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur, Miguel Usandizaga Calparsoro

    Social Housing Complex in Canovelles

    Set of privately developed housing with state subsidy social housing regulations, with an arrangement in isolated blocks of three floors. Each house is made up of three tunnel formwork modules, with a group of modules on a single level and another group with three overlapping modules - triplex. The first group is organised from an uncovered public passage that gives access to the stairs. The gardens of the houses on the ground floor and the reduced height of the blocks contribute to the tree-lined interior street atmosphere. The exterior of the complex is made of brick. The concrete walls of the prefabricated tunnels only appear on the stairs, where thermal insulation is not required. The arrangement of the blocks that organise the group of triplexes gives rise to pedestrian crossings that are at a different level from the parking and circulation streets, and that give independent access to the entrances of the houses and their gardens. The complex is completed by a commercial building and shops on the ground floor of one of the blocks.
  12. Building for the UdG

    Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, Lluís Cantallops Valeri, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur

    Building for the UdG

    L’edifici principal es projectà com un cos allargassat servit per un vestíbul-passadís orientat en direcció nord-sud. Al costat de ponent es situen totes les dependències de tamany petit i de difícil integració. Les dependències més grans es disposaran en les plantes inferiors. Les de menor acollida en les superiors, esglaonant l’edifici des de l’exterior. La façana de llevant mostra aquest esglaonat en planta i secció. La façana de ponent és una superfície plana tallada només per les finestres contínues que accentuen la horitzontalitat predominant de la composició. Des de lluny, la silueta de l’edifici, de totxo blanc silici-calcari, es retalla en els camps que rodegen Girona. Les petites finestres quadrades de la planta semi-soterrada, afegida a última hora al projecte, reforcen la imatge de vaixell enmig d’un mar verd de blat.
  13. Pilma Furniture Store

    Lluís Cantallops Valeri, Miquel Simón Espar

    Pilma Furniture Store

    The premises consisted of the ground floor and mezzanine of an office building. The farthest half of the façade was a semi-basement sunk about 60 cm in relation to street level. The structure of the building was modified by opening a large hole in the floor of the mezzanine, precisely in the place where the change of level took place. Two circular holes of large diameter were also opened in the slabs at the bottom of the plot, so that the natural light from the central courtyard of the block penetrated to the basement through a skylight. The first hole creates vertical perspectives and eliminates the distressing feeling of a dropped ceiling in such a large room. It also allows an easier reading of the entire store space from anywhere. The ramps that save the unevenness are the generative element of the project and guide shoppers through the different sections of the store. The skylight in the circular hole is projected like a cylindrical tympanum of cobblestones, covered with a dome in the shape of a spherical cap that diffuses the daylight and that in the evening reflects the light of spotlights that complement it. The store is an indoor walk through the objects on display.

Bibliography (62)

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.