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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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

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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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How to get there

In Pictures

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

  • Block P of Montbau Estate

Memory

In the second stage of planning the Montbau housing estate, there is an increase in building density. It will be the way some buildings are grouped together and the increase in height of others that will make it possible to achieve this. The resulting public space has a more domestic scale, generating small squares around the building. The P block is one of the types developed for this purpose. A succession of L-shaped blocks, staggered, generates a unique framework, around which 3 separate groups are projected, formed by 3 towers each and which close the whole. The homes on the long side of the L have a ventilated and illuminated staircase on the facade and access from the street to the second-floor level, which requires a different typology to the first floor. Here the houses have only one façade, facing the square. On the second, third and fourth floors there are two homes per landing, with a front and rear façade. On the short side of the L, the staircase is in the middle of the floor and gives access to four apartments per landing. In the block, all parts, except for the toilets, are exterior. And both in the rooms and in the main bedrooms, there is a setback in the façade plan that gives an outdoor space, some terraces, in front of them and generates a very characteristic compositional element that is different from the rest of the façades that do not face the square. The constructive system of load-bearing brick walls allows these large openings, given that they are perpendicular to the south and north façades. The façades combine the work seen with glazed ceramic pieces from La Bisbal in blueish and greenish colours.

Author: Janice Moret

Authors

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Constellation

Chronology

  1. Montbau Industrial Estate

    Giráldez - López Iñigo - Subías Arquitectes, Guillermo Giráldez Dávila, Pedro López Iñigo, Xavier Subías i Fages

    Montbau Industrial Estate

    The Montbau district, located below the Tibidabo, next to Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron, has a total area of approximately 31 Ha. The part built today, or in a very advanced stage of construction, consists of two basic residential units. The garden and the neighbourhood park are also practically finished. A group of about 70 single-family homes in the upper part of the slope is currently under construction, a group that we will not include in the present analysis because it is in a very little advanced phase and, therefore, without specific data. The architect of this group is Joan Bosch. Who are the authors of Montbau? Here is a first concrete problem that can lead us to general considerations. Due to programming requirements, the Municipal Housing Board decided to commission the architects Guillermo Giráldez, Pedro López and Xavier Subías with the urgency of a very few weeks as a matter of urgency. By what criteria were these architects chosen? Probably for simple reasons of proximity, administrative relationship, circumstantial insufficiency of the technical staff itself, etc. But was there a concern to choose a good team precisely for one of the largest projects that were then being developed? At least, or was there an awareness that, by chance and for reasons of bureaucratic convenience, he had fallen into the hands of a good team, then with a promising youthful push? * The original Partial Plan was altered, both in its first phase, slightly, and in the second one, with a change of drafting team and urban planning that substantially modified it.
  2. Montbau Estate: Second Unit

    Manuel Baldrich Tibau, Antoni Bonet Castellana, Pedro López Iñigo, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Montbau Estate: Second Unit

    When the decision to build the second sector was made in 1961, the Board of Trustees commissioned the architects Manuel Baldrich, Antoni Bonet, Pedro López Iñigo and Josep Soteras to drat the corresponding architectural project. What were the reasons for choosing this heterogeneous team, made up of two municipal architects, a provincial architect and an independent architect, who had just arrived from Argentina with an obvious professional prestige? This team, despite the presence of municipal architects, one of them co-author of the first Plan, decided that it could not be limited to design the buildings, but it was also necessary to completely redo the urban structure of that sector. A new Plan was therefore drawn up, which was approved on July 2, 1962. With this new Plan it seems that exactly the double number of dwellings that had been initially planned in that sector were built.
  3. Block P of Montbau Estate

    Manuel Baldrich Tibau, Antoni Bonet Castellana, Pedro López Iñigo, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Block P of Montbau Estate

    In the second stage of planning the Montbau housing estate, there is an increase in building density. It will be the way some buildings are grouped together and the increase in height of others that will make it possible to achieve this. The resulting public space has a more domestic scale, generating small squares around the building. The P block is one of the types developed for this purpose. A succession of L-shaped blocks, staggered, generates a unique framework, around which 3 separate groups are projected, formed by 3 towers each and which close the whole. The homes on the long side of the L have a ventilated and illuminated staircase on the facade and access from the street to the second-floor level, which requires a different typology to the first floor. Here the houses have only one façade, facing the square. On the second, third and fourth floors there are two homes per landing, with a front and rear façade. On the short side of the L, the staircase is in the middle of the floor and gives access to four apartments per landing. In the block, all parts, except for the toilets, are exterior. And both in the rooms and in the main bedrooms, there is a setback in the façade plan that gives an outdoor space, some terraces, in front of them and generates a very characteristic compositional element that is different from the rest of the façades that do not face the square. The constructive system of load-bearing brick walls allows these large openings, given that they are perpendicular to the south and north façades. The façades combine the work seen with glazed ceramic pieces from La Bisbal in blueish and greenish colours.

Bibliography

Related Works (15)

Set Polígon Montbau | Polígon Montbau: Unitat Nord-Est

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