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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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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Extension of Juan Manuel Zafra Secondary School
BCQ Arquitectes, David Baena i Asencio, Antoni Casamor i Maldonado
The Juan Manuel Zafra Secondary School is located at 51 Rogent Street, in the Dreta de l’Eixample district of Barcelona. The first and main building was built at the beginning of the last century with a clear post-industrial Modernist aesthetic. At the end of the 1980s, the vocational training school was considered its expansion as a result of the insufficiency of teaching spaces and the difficulty of adapting the school to the new school programs. In this situation, it is proposed to build a new building that would house the entire theoretical teaching program, leaving the practical classrooms, workshops and administration of the centre in the old building. The new building will also house the sports support program at the school, consisting of a multi-purpose gymnasium and changing rooms. The school's floor availability was very limited and was reduced to the playground. This is located in the void left by the buildings at number 598 of Provença Street. This space of very tight dimensions was also flanked by the large partitions of the adjoining residential buildings. One of the most important decisions was to maintain the character of the inner courtyard of the block open to Provença Street and thus visually free the old school. Therefore, the new classroom could only be located on one of the short sides of the courtyard and sandwiched between two partitions of the two neighbouring buildings. The regulatory length of the playing court immovably fixed the position of the façade. This fact meant an exercise in continence and compaction of the program in height. With this situation, the idea of considering the volume defined by the twelve classrooms as a box suspended in space and presiding over the playground as the main piece arose. The rest of the program, services, tutorials, stairs and others are literally attached to the existing partitions, solving the lack of orthogonality of them. The circulations that occur between the service strip and the classrooms emphasise this autonomy of the main volume even more. The rest of the program is located below the level of access from Provença Street. The gym, as a large empty space, is located on the double-height basement floor with a direct view from the access porch. Keeping the level of the sports court at the same level as the ground floor of the old school allows for the optimisation of the school's internal circulation and a lower fence on a more humane scale. We believe that the programmatic rigour and rationality at the same time as considering its construction have favoured the final clarity of the intervention.