How to get there
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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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:
2019-2024 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
Suggestion box
Request the image
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.
close
close
Memory
In 2002, the city administration decided to launch the urban renewal project for the Sants railway corridor. Having ruled out the option of burying the railway corridor, it was decided to confine it within a light and transparent box for a large part of the layout, the roof of which had to be transformed into an 800 metre-long elevated and landscaped walkway.
The support structure of the building/container is made up of prefabricated concrete pieces in a diagonal sequence that takes the form of a large Warren beam that evokes the old railway bridges, leaving large empty triangles suitable for glazing.
The roof of the building is raised between 4 and 12 metres with respect to the surrounding streets and, consequently, its gardens become a viewpoint over the city and are structured on the basis of two linear routes: one on the north side of the roof, very shaded by trees, and another on the south side, permanently sunny. The intermediate space between both paths is configured as the backbone of the gardens based on the configuration of a complex artificial topography with a high density of trees and a rich planting of shrubby and ground cover vegetation, selected based on a highly selective colour palette. The elevations presented by the topography, reinforced by the density and strategic position of the masses of trees, favour the creation of areas in which the stroller loses the sensation of being inside the city and generates that of being immersed in a natural environment.
Faced with the impossibility of burying the access roads to Sants Station (six by Renfe and two by Metro), the construction of a kind of envelope is being considered which, from the perspective of architecture and keeping it on the surface, solves the problem that this railway infrastructure has produced in the Sants neighbourhood.
The main objectives that this project addresses are summarised in:
1. The practical soundproofing of the railway corridor.
2. The improvement of the neighbourhood's internal connections (pedestrian and road), both in the north-south and east-west direction.
3. The transformation of the roof into a large public space, a green corridor, connecting Plaça de Sants and Hospitalet.
4. The remodeling of the Mercat Nou metro station.
5. The rehabilitation of the spaces attached to the roof.
6. Giving architectural quality to an infrastructural work by treating it like a building.
The result is a light and transparent envelope which avoids the noise pollution produced by the train but allows its vision as it has been usual since its implementation. Likewise, the project improves local and metropolitan connectivity (metro station) as well as the quality of the attached public spaces and marks the beginning of a green corridor on its roof which, in the long run, will have a development of 5km, from Sants Station in Barcelona to Can Mercader Park in Cornellà.
Area of action: 6Ha (700ml)
Authors
On the Map
Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works