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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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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:
2019-2023 Aureli Mora i Omar OrnaqueDocumental Commission:
2019-2023 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:
2019-2023 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
Mitjans solves the pattern of the tower inspired by the Pirelli building in Turin, after a meeting with its author, Gio Ponti. However, the structural solution is completely new: four metal pillars located in the floor’s centre of gravity leave the rest completely open and contain all the facilities. The four side screens are also load-bearing, and all the supporting elements are expressed on the outside by a white marble cladding. The two vertical communication cores are located at the ends and ensure evacuation in case of fire. The tower is connected to the Eixample’s fabric through a lower body and reaches up to twenty metres below the ground to house the car park. This is a completely genuine solution for a medium-sized office tower, which strongly characterises the urban landscape of the area.
Banco Atlántico is one of the so-called singular buildings that were carried out when Josep Maria de Porcioles was Barcelona’s Mayor. It is clearly inspired by the Pirelli Tower in Milan, designed by Gio Ponti in collaboration with the structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi. In Banco Atlántico, the lenticular plan adapts perfectly to the geometry of the chamfer, which leaves the project perfectly locked in the urban context.
To define the volume of the building, Mitjans generates a shadow at the vertices that allows him to visually separate the building from the dividing walls and have a vertical reading of the tower, from the roof to the sidewalk. This solution also allows you to highlight one of the neighbouring buildings located on Balmes Street and whose author is Ricard Ribas i Seva from GATCPAC. The layout of the floor plan is organised around these lateral vertices, which are opaque elements that contain the cores of vertical communication and services. This solution allows the floors to be very diaphanous and the rest of the façades can be solved with glass curtain walls. A water tank has been incorporated into the roof of the building in case of fire.
Authors
On the Map
Constellation
Cronology
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Banco Atlántico
Santiago Balcells Gorina, Francesc Mitjans Miró
Mitjans solves the pattern of the tower inspired by the Pirelli building in Turin, after a meeting with its author, Gio Ponti. However, the structural solution is completely new: four metal pillars located in the floor’s centre of gravity leave the rest completely open and contain all the facilities. The four side screens are also load-bearing, and all the supporting elements are expressed on the outside by a white marble cladding. The two vertical communication cores are located at the ends and ensure evacuation in case of fire. The tower is connected to the Eixample’s fabric through a lower body and reaches up to twenty metres below the ground to house the car park. This is a completely genuine solution for a medium-sized office tower, which strongly characterises the urban landscape of the area. -
FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner (ex aequo). Category: Interior Design
Remodelling for the New Headquarters of Banco Sabadell AtlánticoInterventions in the Banc Sabadell Tower Block
On many occasions, we were called to intervene in the most public areas of a beautiful building from the 50s by the architect Francesc Mitjans. At the entrance, very disfigured by many interventions that made it complex and clumsy, we try to clarify it at a functional and urban level. The interiors, joined by a circular staircase that we restore freely, have a floor that changes level gently (we had to avoid the steps that already existed). The roof reacts to these movements. The ceiling, especially in interior areas, concentrates the light and has a special expressiveness. At times it resembles, like a ghost, the original interior.
Audiovisual
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