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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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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: 
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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
Coderch very clearly differentiates the ground floor are with the emerging volumes in height in a place located in the outskirts of Barcelona, with large, isolated buildings. In response to a large tertiary program, it projects an organism consisting of four four-leaf towers with very smooth curves and counter-curves. Three of the towers share the first two floors, with a perimeter that embraces them in a large unifying plinth. The curtain wall’s modulation is very narrow to allow turns and counterturns, and the modules travel around the perimeter following a sawtooth pattern. In the centre of each tower, the vertical communication cores are embraced by four large concrete pillars, complemented by series of equidistant metal pillars. The image provided by the towers expresses the mobility of a sector of the city which is marked by major traffic routes and isolated buildings.
This set of four office towers is located in an expanding area that used to connect Diagonal Avenue with Les Corts neighbourhood. The urban planning was already fixed beforehand, and the architects decided to undulate the perimeter of the towers, recovering the first solutions of Mies van der Rohe and some of the shapes of Alvar Aalto’s glasses. Three of the towers are connected by the ground floor and the distribution of all of them is developed around a central nucleus, so that the totality of the offices has natural light and views to the outside. At the same time, the central core becomes a reception, meeting and circulation area that contains the restrooms.
The façades are solved with curtain walls that are divided into vertical strips to be able to adapt to the perimeter, and they are assembled following a sawtooth pattern. In this way, the carpentry’s delivery is simplified, and the different shades of light provided by the orientation can be gradually nuanced during the course of the day. The façade incorporates interior brick masonry parapets that improve the thermal behaviour of the curtain walls and manage to adapt them to the Mediterranean’s climate strong sunlight.
Coderch was commissioned to build a set of buildings at the junction of Diagonal Avenue with Gran Via de Carles III, based on a previous urban development plan. The office program is resolved with a central structural core, communication site and services, with a displaced staircase on one of the axes to facilitates the access from the street. The structure is complemented by a system of perimeter pillars.
The set consists of four towers. Three of them, the closest ones to Diagonal Avenue, are joined by a plinth that gives urban continuity, and the fourth tower is isolated but follows the same order and is volumetrically in accordance with the previous ones. The towers are sinuous, with a rounded shape that diminishes the forcefulness that a square geometry would have meant. The plinth also integrates with these smooth changes of direction and absorbs the towers without stridency. The complex is built with a curtain wall solution that recovers the spirit for which it was created. The fine overlapping carpentry provides a feeling of lightness that favours the continuity and elegance of a complex which is resolved with the sobriety of a single detail.
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FAD Award
Finalist. Category: ArchitectureTrade BuildingsTrade Buildings
José Antonio Coderch de Sentmenat, Manuel Valls i Vergés
Coderch very clearly differentiates the ground floor are with the emerging volumes in height in a place located in the outskirts of Barcelona, with large, isolated buildings. In response to a large tertiary program, it projects an organism consisting of four four-leaf towers with very smooth curves and counter-curves. Three of the towers share the first two floors, with a perimeter that embraces them in a large unifying plinth. The curtain wall’s modulation is very narrow to allow turns and counterturns, and the modules travel around the perimeter following a sawtooth pattern. In the centre of each tower, the vertical communication cores are embraced by four large concrete pillars, complemented by series of equidistant metal pillars. The image provided by the towers expresses the mobility of a sector of the city which is marked by major traffic routes and isolated buildings.