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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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
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Project by: 
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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
On a long, narrow plot on the outskirts of Gràcia, Coderch conceives a house in which the longitudinal and vertical dimensions are balanced out by fixed elements that break the spatial continuity: basically, two covered courtyards to the right and left of the plot, and two stairs placed transversely. The ground floor forms a broken sequence that goes from the access atrium to the workshop in the bottom, with a double height. The first floor is for the living areas of the house, and the second floor is for the bedrooms. The library forms a separate, weightless body, set back from the street alignment. The house forms a device to make the most of the scant light available through a vertical and horizontal façade of white-painted wooden slats, a light that reaches the interior, always absorbed by some facings that leave the dark tone of the brick factory visible.
Tàpies’ studio house is between partitions and is located on a long and narrow plot of land in the Sant Gervasi neighbourhood. The regulations for buildings between partitions predetermine the L-shaped section of the building, to which the program is perfectly adapted: on the ground floor are the entrance, the garage and the doorman's house; in the background, the double-height painting workshop; the first two floors are intended for housing itself; and finally, an intermediate floor with terraces isolates the upper floor, where the library and an office are located. The structure is metallic and has been left exposed and painted white; the interior walls are of exposed brick. The façade to the street is mainly defined by the white metal structure, closed with white wooden Llambí shutters and fibre cement plates. The garage door is made of wood and is painted in a dark brown colour. The painting workshop receives overhead lighting through plastic skylights, protected on the inside with a ceiling made of adjustable white wooden slats. The brick walls are interrupted by the metal pillars, on which the lamps have been fixed. The library is a completely opaque volume to the street, set back from the façade and differentiated from the two façades. This allows the façades to appear lower, recovering the scale of the neighbourhood and the existing houses.
Casa Tàpies is developed between partitions in Barcelona’s Farró district. Regarding the exterior and façade level, its main feature is the asymmetrical arrangement of the metal structure, combining the slats and the opaque wall to solve the closure. In this way, its continuous but discreet variation does not transmit to the street what is lived inside, as it is a house that looks at itself and lives inwards. It enjoys its own courtyard as a large space and the street is just an auxiliary element.
The interior is characterised by manual brick and the use, again, of the metal structure and slats, achieving a continuous play of crossed lights that nuance the spaces and where the staircase also comes into play. The program, which is superimposed on floors, is crowned by the library in double space that revolves around the chimney.
The workshop, located at the bottom of the site, completes the initial longitudinal route on the ground floor and is separated from the development vertically but integrated by the sequence of spaces leading to it. A perfect inner world to carry out the artist's activity in peace.
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Antoni Tàpies House and Studio
José Antonio Coderch de Sentmenat, Manuel Valls i Vergés
On a long, narrow plot on the outskirts of Gràcia, Coderch conceives a house in which the longitudinal and vertical dimensions are balanced out by fixed elements that break the spatial continuity: basically, two covered courtyards to the right and left of the plot, and two stairs placed transversely. The ground floor forms a broken sequence that goes from the access atrium to the workshop in the bottom, with a double height. The first floor is for the living areas of the house, and the second floor is for the bedrooms. The library forms a separate, weightless body, set back from the street alignment. The house forms a device to make the most of the scant light available through a vertical and horizontal façade of white-painted wooden slats, a light that reaches the interior, always absorbed by some facings that leave the dark tone of the brick factory visible. -
FAD Award
Finalist. Category: ArchitectureAntoni Tàpies House and Studio