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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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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 Casa de les Punxes occupies an entire irregular square bounded by Avenue Diagonal and Rosselló and Bruc Street. Therefore, in plan it is a trapezoid of almost triangular form with chamfers in the two corners that form the base of the triangle.
Puig anchors the building to the ground, marking all the corners of the plot with circular towers, which stand out above the roofs.
The volume of the house is Nordic-inspired, with gabled roofs parallel to the street (as opposed to Mediterranean architecture) that mark the various houses with which the building is formed.
The tower that marks the corner of Rosselló Street and Diagonal Avenue is different from the others, taller and more ornate, in order to break the symmetry of the smaller front of the building and load it on Diagonal Avenue. The ensemble has a unit volume resulting from the aggregation of the small fragments in which the façades have been torn to pieces, of a more suitable size and compatible with the houses of the surrounding flats.
Brick is the main material throughout the square, with stone details and ceramic mosaics. The wrought iron work is unique, and the details that make up the façade are as interesting as the building itself.
The various façades formed by the succession of gabled roofs were composed by means of a very interesting set of openings arranged in even and odd numbers in groups of alternate floors (on one floor there are four windows and on the next one three, for example), a legacy of Puig i Cadafalch’s modernist formation, which, combined with its Nordic influences, forms the main vocabulary of one of the most beautiful buildings in the city.
It is remarkable and singular due to the misalignment of the façades with respect to the street: the geometry of the towers arrives clean on the ground, without variation, and the gates are marked with porches with columns that also leave the line of façade fleeing from the flat façades, a characteristic feature of the architecture of the moment.
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La Casa de les Punxes - Va passar aquí | betevé