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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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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
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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
Despite being the result of a series of private promotions, the project reflects on the site and the program as if it were a public facility. The university area is read as a periphery with a great urban vocation, marked by the presence of several university faculties and some sports facilities. The place is read as a reference-laden environment, to which the building responds with a set of built-up volumes that show a great vocation for unity. The plan is organised in three main crevices separated by two longitudinal streets, which connect the highest elevation of Diagonal Avenue with the gardens at the back. The white concrete of the entire façade unites the volumes of various dimensions, and the openings are adjusted to a very strict repertoire in order to create a stylistic coherence. The building promotes the urban character of the area and presents a continuity with the existing uses.
The Palau de Congressos de Catalunya is located at the south-western end of the city of Barcelona, at the access to the A-2 motorway. Located next to the Hotel Rey Juan Carlos I and its gardens, the Fitness Center, the Turó Tennis Club and the Polo Club, it offers its two main façades on Torre Melina Street (west), and on Diagonal Avenue (north).
Therefore, it is located at one of the gates of Barcelona, close to many university, sports, financial, commercial and hotel facilities.
The axis of Diagonal Avenue has a large hotel capacity of three, four and five stars, and the location of a congress hall at one end makes the most of the conditions offered by the city.
The project has sought to provide the complex – made up of privately promoted buildings – with a certain institutional vocation as a public building.
This facility is located in an area of large urban zones. The group formed by the different facilities and their gardens accepts this vocation, generating its own and autonomous formal and functional references. A place located at a high altitude that dominates the urban landscape and opens up views of Montjuïc and the coast.
The building is decomposed into bodies facilitating its settlement on the sloping topography, taking advantage of the difference in level between Diagonal Avenue and the gardens of Torre Melina.
This mechanism makes it possible to locate a large volume built with a friendly presence for the city, and discovering the interior space, it is surprising for its large volumetric and spatial unity, at the same time as it is fragmented on the outside.
White concrete, as almost the only exterior material, emphasises this contrast with an aggregation composition.
The building is divided into three bodies separated by two inner streets that allow visual communication between Diagonal Avenue and the Torre Melina gardens, and also provide natural light to the different rooms.
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Palau de Congressos de Catalunya
Josep Maria Cartañá i Gubern, Carlos Ferrater i Lambarri
Despite being the result of a series of private promotions, the project reflects on the site and the program as if it were a public facility. The university area is read as a periphery with a great urban vocation, marked by the presence of several university faculties and some sports facilities. The place is read as a reference-laden environment, to which the building responds with a set of built-up volumes that show a great vocation for unity. The plan is organised in three main crevices separated by two longitudinal streets, which connect the highest elevation of Diagonal Avenue with the gardens at the back. The white concrete of the entire façade unites the volumes of various dimensions, and the openings are adjusted to a very strict repertoire in order to create a stylistic coherence. The building promotes the urban character of the area and presents a continuity with the existing uses. -
EU Mies Award
NominatedPalau de Congressos de Catalunya