How to get there
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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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
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.
close
close
Memory
Located on a strip of the site, between the current Faculty and the Sant Raimon de Penyafort College, a set of buildings is planned in three construction phases that will house teaching research uses and rooms for specific technical uses, on the one hand, and a part intended for administration, departments, seminars, library, exhibition rooms and other dependencies for students, on the other.
CLASSROOMS - LABORATORIES: NORTH and SOUTH phases
The project is conceived as a 170-metre-long container, between Diagonal Avenue and Les Corts Cemetery, where a 50-metre-wide avenue is planned, which connects Joan XXIII Street with the interior of the Campus. At this point, the project turns and runs along the future avenue for a length of 44 metres. It is this façade, together with that of the Faculty of Geology building, that defines part of the character of the Avenue.
It is in this central block where the laboratories, classrooms, seminars and other services are located.
Structurally, in cross section, the building is defined by two spans of 7.8 and 8.4 metres each; reducing to one when the distance with the buildings around it is excessively small. Along the corridor there are variations in the situation of the pillars, stairs and plant accesses, thus creating different spatial rhythms.
From the outside, the changes to the structural section also give variety to the façade, thus breaking the monotony of the type of module. The ground floor is on the same level as that of the existing building. Two upper and two lower floors and an additional basement for parking and warehouses are planned.
In the square created between the existing building and the new extension, the library is projected; an underground space, at double height and lit by interior patios. Access occurs independently of the rest of the buildings to give autonomy to their operation.
LIBRARY
The library, developed in an independent construction phase, serves as a link between the northern phase of the extension and the existing building of the Faculty of Biology. It is distributed over three floors below ground level and the passable roof, which becomes a square to give access to the old faculty, the library itself and the new extension.
The program of offices, administration, warehouses and reading spaces are located on the first two levels below ground level. The third basement is occupied by facilities and parking.
The main reading area is covered by skylights in order to make the most of natural light while a double space visually communicates and illuminates these first two underground levels.
GREENHOUSES
The central space of the lot is intended for the construction of two large greenhouses with adequate air conditioning systems in order to reproduce different environmental situations. They consist of a basement floor for the location of large machinery and with systems designed to achieve a high degree of insulation from the outside.
Authors
On the Map
Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works
Constellation
Chronology
-
Faculty of Biology of the UB
Joan Antoni Ballesteros i Figueras, Joan Carles Cardenal i González, Francisco de la Guardia Conte
Given the dimensions of the plot and having to place the dependencies destined to experimental fields in it, with an approximate surface of 1 ha., the organization in concentrated plant and consequent development of the program in height was adopted from the beginning. Because the building was thought of in terms of height, it was considered essential that the relationship between the different floors was not made by simple elements of vertical circulation and consequent distribution steps that would lead to the total independence of the departments. For this reason, two complementary concepts were adopted in the organisation of interior spaces and interrelationships between departments: 1. The vertical circulations are developed around a large courtyard covered by a zenithal lighting element that allows to integrate the different floors with the ground floor where the accesses and general dependencies of common use are located. 2. The departments are related to each other through galleries that surround and configure the said courtyard and where the stairs that save half-height slopes are located, with which the maximum relationship between the departments is achieved, as well as their differentiation by placing each at a different level. In order to record the programs of the different departments of analogous surfaces, prismatic volumes are configured with the necessary setbacks to obtain a maximum of natural lighting. As complementary elements to these volumes and linked to them, staggered cylindrical bodies that house the classrooms are arranged. The formal justification of these cylindrical bodies is determined by the very intrinsic function of the classrooms. The amphitheatre in a quarter-circle solution has been adopted as the standard floor plan for the classrooms and function room, which brings together the advantages of making the most out of the surface and bringing the students closer to the teacher or lecturer. -
Extension of the Biology Faculty of the UB
Located on a strip of the site, between the current Faculty and the Sant Raimon de Penyafort College, a set of buildings is planned in three construction phases that will house teaching research uses and rooms for specific technical uses, on the one hand, and a part intended for administration, departments, seminars, library, exhibition rooms and other dependencies for students, on the other. CLASSROOMS - LABORATORIES: NORTH and SOUTH phases The project is conceived as a 170-metre-long container, between Diagonal Avenue and Les Corts Cemetery, where a 50-metre-wide avenue is planned, which connects Joan XXIII Street with the interior of the Campus. At this point, the project turns and runs along the future avenue for a length of 44 metres. It is this façade, together with that of the Faculty of Geology building, that defines part of the character of the Avenue. It is in this central block where the laboratories, classrooms, seminars and other services are located. Structurally, in cross section, the building is defined by two spans of 7.8 and 8.4 metres each; reducing to one when the distance with the buildings around it is excessively small. Along the corridor there are variations in the situation of the pillars, stairs and plant accesses, thus creating different spatial rhythms. From the outside, the changes to the structural section also give variety to the façade, thus breaking the monotony of the type of module. The ground floor is on the same level as that of the existing building. Two upper and two lower floors and an additional basement for parking and warehouses are planned. In the square created between the existing building and the new extension, the library is projected; an underground space, at double height and lit by interior patios. Access occurs independently of the rest of the buildings to give autonomy to their operation. LIBRARY The library, developed in an independent construction phase, serves as a link between the northern phase of the extension and the existing building of the Faculty of Biology. It is distributed over three floors below ground level and the passable roof, which becomes a square to give access to the old faculty, the library itself and the new extension. The program of offices, administration, warehouses and reading spaces are located on the first two levels below ground level. The third basement is occupied by facilities and parking. The main reading area is covered by skylights in order to make the most of natural light while a double space visually communicates and illuminates these first two underground levels. GREENHOUSES The central space of the lot is intended for the construction of two large greenhouses with adequate air conditioning systems in order to reproduce different environmental situations. They consist of a basement floor for the location of large machinery and with systems designed to achieve a high degree of insulation from the outside.