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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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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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Memory
The library is located in one of the expansion areas of the city, where the presence of old steamboats and small single-family houses gradually gives way to new replacement architecture. The whole is made up of two clearly differentiated volumes, arranged obliquely. In the interstitial space between both bodies there is the main access. The largest volume is occupied by the general reading room, at ground floor level, while the lower level contains the children's library and storage. The ground floor of the small volume is used as a reading room for newspapers and magazines, while on the lower level there is an assembly room and a lobby with external access, from an English courtyard located on the south side. Both bodies are determined from the cross-section, designed to provide the entire interior space with homogeneous light, by means of large, curved vaults that evoke the city's industrial past.
The central library of Terrassa is located in one of the main territories undergoing city transformation, currently occupied by small single-family homes and old steamboats. The ensemble reinterprets the neighbouring industrial architectures and is inserted as another piece of this architectural catalogue.
The building fronts the Paseo de las Letras, and although it has generous openings that allow cross visions between the exterior and the interior, it is not very accessible around its perimeter. The spaces are discovered in a chain from the access located in the interstice between the two bodies. The larger volume is the one that houses the main reading room on the ground floor, while the smaller one houses the newspaper and magazine reading spaces.
A large lateral English courtyard allows part of the programme to be placed on a lower level, where the children's library, the storeroom and the meeting room are located.
The building has two sections that, analogous to the old factory complexes in the area, broadly define its main geometry. The roof unfolds in curved sections and provides optimal lighting conditions for the work that takes place inside. The patterned order of the structure ends up being confined in two volumes that fit the trapezoidal perimeter of the plot.
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