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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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
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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. Titulat el 1928. Va ser un dels arquitectes fundadors del GATCPAC. Realitzà la casa Vilaró també coneguda com a “casa vaixell” (1930) a Sant Josep de la Muntanya; diversos projectes de cinemes, com el cinema Montaña (1932 ) o el cinema Bohemia (1933), un projecte de fira agrícola (1933) efectuat amb Alzamora i Sert o un edifici d’habitatges al carrer de Pàdua, 96 (1935)

Source: Arxiu Històric del COAC

Works (7)

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Constellation

Chronology (7)

  1. Vilaró House

    GATCPAC, Sixte Illescas i Mirosa

    Vilaró House

    Casa Vilaró is one of the first rationalist buildings in Barcelona, built by a Sixte Illescas who had not yet turned thirty. It is, therefore, a building created by one of the founding members of GATCPAC in its early days. The house is located on an extraordinarily steep hill on which Coll del Portell Avenue winds to save its slope, twisting on itself to the point that the plot where it sits is served twice by the same street. The building is very hard to see from the street. The back is covered by a fence of about three metres, and the front by the overgrown vegetation that the owners have kept in the garden. It has only a wall facing the street, with the garage door. It relates to the distant views over Barcelona and creates its own outdoor spaces through the terrace that follows the continuous and curved perimeter that forms its characteristic profile. This terrace is covered by an eaves of the same width, supported by six metal columns of minimum section. The appearance of the building resembles that of a ship and is ascribed to the "naval" current of the first Modern Movement. The house is organized with the living spaces on the first floor, served by the terrace, facing the view, and a ground floor that contains the rooms, illuminated zenithally by a long and narrow window, located just in contact with the ceiling, of singular design, that contributes to create the illusion that the living area floats on the terrain. The house is for private use and the interiors contain furniture designed by Illescas himself. On the west side there is a fully stepped passage from which it is easy to get a close view of the house.
  2. Dwellings at 5 Atenes Street

    Sixte Illescas i Mirosa

    Dwellings at 5 Atenes Street

    Large building located in the of Sant Gervasi – Galvany district which occupies almost half of a block with frontage on Atenes and Turó de Monterols Streets and a private passage that has been converted into a garage. It consists of a ground floor, five floors and, in some places, an attic set back from the plan of the façade. The openings on the three façades follow vertical axes and are all rectangular without decoration. This sobriety of the windows contrasts with the game of entrances and exits that the façade makes from tribunes and balconies that give plasticity to the façade. The corner between Atenes and Turó de Monterols Streets is particularly noteworthy, where there are large overhanging stone balconies that make up the corner. The rest of the balconies have the base of the work and then a white bladed railing. The wall of the fifth floor in some places recedes from the plane of the façade, creating a terrace in front. The facing of the ground floor is covered with stone, while the rest of the building is plastered and painted light pink. Sixte Illescas was the architect and at the same time the owner of the building. In 1953, some floors were added to the roof of the Turó de Monterols Street façade.
  3. Glass House

    GATCPAC, Sixte Illescas i Mirosa

    Glass House

    The standard floor accommodates three flats per landing, although an attempt has been made to place the maximum common services on the ground floor, and a special character is given to the two last floors. The houses on the fifth floor have a garden terrace above, which is accessed vertically from the dining room. The top floor is occupied by four studios, also with their own garden terrace. The building is a reason for experimenting with new construction procedures, which should be used to give the minimum thickness to the flat roof, or to allow the slabs of the stairs to be self-supporting.
  4. Dwellings at 42 Lincoln Street

    Sixte Illescas i Mirosa

    Dwellings at 42 Lincoln Street

    Building between partitions located in El Putxet i el Farró district. It consists of a ground floor and three landings with a flat roof. The façade is symmetrical: three large square windows take up the central space of each floor followed by a smaller window on each side; at the ends of the façade there are large balconies with two openings. The balconies on the first floor do not have a flyover while those on the second and third floor protrude from the plane of the façade. Eaves protrude from the upper part that protects the balconies. On the ground floor, on the axis of symmetry, the access portal to the property is found and, on both sides, there are the windows and doors corresponding to the commercial premises. All the facing is plastered and painted in a reddish color, except for a plinth covered with stone. This building was designed by Sixte Illescas for his family. The tax exemption law of 1935 was used to encourage the construction of rental flats in the Republican era. Illescas did not finish the direction of works, which was continued by Pere-Jordi Bassegoda i Musté.
  5. Concepció Ràfols i Martí House

    Sixte Illescas i Mirosa

    Concepció Ràfols i Martí House

    Building between partitions located in the Antiga Esquerra de l’Eixample district. It occupies a very long plot of land, and at the back it opens onto the interior of the block. It consists of a ground floor and five landings with a flat roof. On the main façade, all the openings follow three longitudinal axes. On the ground floor, the access door is not in the central space but is moved to one side, and the other two doors correspond to commercial premises. On the upper floors, the façade protrudes forming a large tribune in the space occupied by two of these axes, the ones corresponding to the commercial premises, so this tribune is not located in the centre but is shifted to one side. In this space, two windows that continue along the sides of the tribune open. In the third axis, which corresponds to the access portal, rectangular windows open except on the first floor, where there is a small balcony that starts from the tribune, ends with a rounded shape and has tubular railings. The façade is finished by a cornice that creates small eaves above the tubular railing that closes the upper terrace. The facing of the ground floor is covered with stone while the rest of the façade is plastered and painted white. It highlights the woodwork and green shutters that contrast with the white of the walls. The rear façade has similar characteristics but here the tribune only takes up the central axis and there are windows on both sides. This building was part of the law passed in 1935 to encourage the construction of quality rental housing at affordable prices for the middle classes. This law, known as the Salmón Law, was created by Federico Salmón when he was Minister of Labour during the Second Republic with the aim of fighting unemployment by offering tax exemptions to the promoters of the works. The architect, Sixte Illescas, designed two homes per landing but the owners, Jaume Forn Ràfols and his mother, demanded three homes per landing. This caused Illescas to resign and the works passed to the architect Pere Jordi Bassegoda i Musté, who agreed to this extension.

Archive

  • Perspectiva de l'edifici d'Habitatges Pàdua.

    Drawing

    Perspectiva de l'edifici d'Habitatges Pàdua.

    Arxiu Històric del COAC

Bibliography (6)

Societies

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