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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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
The offices take up the entire top floor of a building intended for offices, with a trapezoidal plan and three façades built on the basis of a fiber cement sill, while the rest is made entirely of glass. The structure is based on metal portals.
The office program to be installed on that free floor consisted of a reception, a secretary, a meeting room, a visiting room, two offices intended for technicians, an office for an administrator, a library, a draftsman's room and health services for employees and the public.
An air conditioning system had to be installed for all the rooms for the summer.
In the whole distribution, the existing façade was an important condition, which due to the type and dimensions of the openings, only normally allowed and in a façade perimeter of 40 metres the delivery of dividing partitions in 8 fixed points.
Another condition was the pillars of the structure, which, due to their situation in the plan, made it difficult to build partitions precisely at those points where deliveries with the external enclosure were easier.
The third condition was to obtain some natural lighting even for the spaces that remained inside and did not receive direct light from the outside.
Using a special profile to solve the delivery of the partitions with the façade carpentry, the possible delivery points were increased; and by retracting the dividing walls forming angled windows in each displacement, it was possible to separate the structure of the partitions and give some natural lighting even to the reception, which is the innermost space of the offices.
To visually isolate the offices from the outside, protect them from the summer sun, and make the installation of air conditioning as economical as possible, the entire façade has been protected with "American" type windows of white plastic, which separated in their lower part from the face of the façade, create an air chamber between the shutters and the façade, very favourable to avoid a higher heat transmission.
To allow the passage of the air conditioning conductors, the false ceiling of the rooms that ventilate directly to the outside have been placed at a higher level than the rest, and between both levels the grilles of air expulsion have been placed.
All the rooms in the program are closed spaces except the secretariat, which is separated from the outside only by a counter and a wardrobe hanging from the upper floor and which visually isolates both environments.
All the doors, except for the sanitary ones, are of acid-treated glass to give greater illumination to the interior rooms while preserving privacy.
In the partitions and during their construction, drilled metal profiles were placed that serve as supports for most of the office furniture.
Authors
On the Map
Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works