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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
Aureli Mora i Omar Ornaque
Directors arquitecturacatalana.cat
About us
Architects' Association of Catalonia:
Àrea de CulturaDirectors:
2019-2022 Aureli Mora i Omar OrnaqueDocumental Commission:
2019-2022 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:
2019-2022 Lluis Andreu Sergi Ballester Maria Jesús QuinteroWith the support of:
Generalitat de Catalunya Departament de CulturaCollaborating Entities:
ArquinFADFundació Mies van der Rohe
Fundación DOCOMOMO Ibérico
Design & Development:
Nubilum EdittioSuggestion 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.
Memory
The first proposal for the reconstruction of the German pavilion was made in Mies van der Rohe by Group R, which received an enthusiastic response from the architect, but the project did not prosper due to the Administration’s disinterest. There is a second proposal by Joan Bassegoda i Nonell from 1964, and ten years later Professor Fernando Ramos organised a seminar to get to know the building in detail, as there was almost no project originally. The final proposal was born in 1981, when some scholars and historians already had a fair knowledge of the archived materials in Barcelona, Berlin, New York and Chicago. This knowledge, in addition to some working hypotheses and the analysis of the remains found in the same place, could guarantee the rigorous fidelity of the reconstruction, based on the original building and not so much on the redrawn plans that Mies had done on behalf of Werner Blaser. Reconstruction differs from the original in aspects such as roof waterproofing, water collection or security. The building is currently the Mies van der Rohe Foundation headquarters and functions as a conference room for small events.
We are aware that we have had an exceptional experience. As architects, we have faced the reconstruction of a paradigmatic building of twentieth-century architecture. We started from the background of various trainings and experiences. We found the singularity of a reconstruction for which there was abundant information about what we were going to rebuild, but not enough to establish, without any doubt, what characteristics the mythical Miesian building had had.
Our work has been a project. But an atypical project insofar as research, critical decisions and technical solutions have had a different relationship than usual to conventional architectural projects.
Authors
On the Map
Constellation
Cronology
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German Pavilion of the 1929 International Exhibition
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
El pabellón alemán representa una nueva manera de concebir el espacio, completamente distinta de la tradicional y coherente con las posibilidades que ofrecen las nuevas estructuras de pilares metálicos. Mies lleva esta innovación constructiva al límite de sus posibilidades visuales permitiendo que los muros de cerramiento se distribuyan libremente por toda la planta. Otro aspecto remarcable del pabellón es la selección de materiales de gran calidad y colores muy intensos, así como la introducción de dos láminas de agua en los espacios exteriores. Bruno Zevi lleva a cabo una investigación donde sitúa estéticamente la arquitectura del pabellón dentro del neoplasticismo, un movimiento anticlásico del que Mies formaba parte. El dinamismo de los planos horizontales y verticales del pabellón responde claramente a los principios estéticos de este movimiento de vanguardia y se contrapone claramente a la concepción estática del arte grecorromano. El pabellón debe leerse como un manifiesto que determinará toda la arquitectura posterior de Mies e influirá en las sucesivas generaciones de arquitectos modernos. Sin embargo, los arquitectos catalanes de la República ya habían tomado partido por Le Corbusier y los CIAM, y la influencia de Mies tendría que esperar hasta los años 50. Contra la opinión generalizada, este pabellón también debería leerse como un nuevo prototipo de vivienda que Mies ha ido presentando sucesivamente en distintas exposiciones internacionales: la Glasraum en Stuttgart, 1927; el Pabellón Alemán en Barcelona, 1929; y la Casa para un Soltero en Berlín, 1931. Todas ellas variaciones de una nueva tipología de casas patio. En los años 50, Oriol Bohigas se puso en contacto con Mies van der Rohe para reconstruir el pabellón de Barcelona. Mies dio su consentimiento y estaba dispuesto a llevarlo a cabo personalmente, sin embargo no autorizó la reconstrucción del monumento a Karl Liebknecht y Rosa Luxemburgo porque no respetaba el emplazamiento original. Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Fernando Ramos y Cristián Cirici completaron la reconstrucción en 1986, con motivo del centenario del nacimiento de Mies. -
Reconstruction of the German Pavilion
Cristian Cirici i Alomar, Fernando Juan Ramos Galino, Ignasi de Solà-Morales i Rubió
The first proposal for the reconstruction of the German pavilion was made in Mies van der Rohe by Group R, which received an enthusiastic response from the architect, but the project did not prosper due to the Administration’s disinterest. There is a second proposal by Joan Bassegoda i Nonell from 1964, and ten years later Professor Fernando Ramos organised a seminar to get to know the building in detail, as there was almost no project originally. The final proposal was born in 1981, when some scholars and historians already had a fair knowledge of the archived materials in Barcelona, Berlin, New York and Chicago. This knowledge, in addition to some working hypotheses and the analysis of the remains found in the same place, could guarantee the rigorous fidelity of the reconstruction, based on the original building and not so much on the redrawn plans that Mies had done on behalf of Werner Blaser. Reconstruction differs from the original in aspects such as roof waterproofing, water collection or security. The building is currently the Mies van der Rohe Foundation headquarters and functions as a conference room for small events. -
FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Intervencions Efímeres
Mies Missing MaterialityAnna&Eugeni Bach, Eugeni Bach Triadó, Anna Bach
FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner (opinion). Category: Intervencions EfímeresMies Missing MaterialityAnna&Eugeni Bach, Eugeni Bach Triadó, Anna Bach
