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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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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
The building of the central anti-tuberculosis dispensary in Barcelona is one of the most representative works of Catalonia’s rationalist architecture in the pre-war period and constitutes a piece of exceptional architectural interest. The building presented – after more than fifty years of use – the typical deterioration of a construction that has been able to respond to the evolution of functional requirements, based on successive specific interventions following the style of the intervened architecture. When we assumed the intervention commitment, we knew that the building was the master and that it would provide us with all the answers, both in terms of a new functional program, as well as the constructive ones referring to the restoration of its pathologies and the incorporation of new facilities. It was also the building itself that gave us the formal keys for the recovery of the garden located in the central courtyard of the original perimeter fence, of the colour scheme both outside and inside the building, the resolution of the new façade.
The process began with a 'deconstruction' of the building, following the different typologies that it presented and certain sectors of the slabs began to be recovered. Existing facilities were changed. The adaptation process to the new functional programs was easy, since the building needed few modifications to accommodate the new requirements.
Another issue to which we gave special importance was the recovery of the original colours, which is why a methodical investigation was carried out using samples processed in the laboratory. Finally, the original lateral façade was recovered because an annex body was demolished. The intervention always tries to respect the work as much as possible, so that its modernisation and refurbishment does not represent, as far as possible, formal or spatial repercussions for the work.
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Tuberculosis Clinic
GATCPAC, Josep Lluís Sert, Joan Baptista Subirana i Subirana, Josep Torres Clavé
The building, intended to cover a sanitary need that was very common at the time, does not meet the street alignments but is organised into two parallel bodies oriented from east to west and articulated in an L shape. You enter the enclosure through a semi-public garden that gives direct access to both bodies. The block on the north side contains the surgeries, laboratories and archives. The body at the bottom of the site houses the conference room and the library on the upper floors. The layout of all the rooms, the circulation system and the treatment of the façades respond to a rigorous monitoring of the program and the solar abacus, regardless of the constraints of the location. It is a model of inserting the concepts of rationalism into a fabric that is not taken into account, and which is implicitly criticised for the strict functionality of the building itself. -
Remodelling and Rehabilitation of the Tuberculosis Dispensary as a Primary Healthcare Centre
Mario Luis Corea Aiello, Francisco Gallardo-Bravo, Edgardo Mannino
The building of the central anti-tuberculosis dispensary in Barcelona is one of the most representative works of Catalonia’s rationalist architecture in the pre-war period and constitutes a piece of exceptional architectural interest. The building presented – after more than fifty years of use – the typical deterioration of a construction that has been able to respond to the evolution of functional requirements, based on successive specific interventions following the style of the intervened architecture. When we assumed the intervention commitment, we knew that the building was the master and that it would provide us with all the answers, both in terms of a new functional program, as well as the constructive ones referring to the restoration of its pathologies and the incorporation of new facilities. It was also the building itself that gave us the formal keys for the recovery of the garden located in the central courtyard of the original perimeter fence, of the colour scheme both outside and inside the building, the resolution of the new façade. The process began with a 'deconstruction' of the building, following the different typologies that it presented and certain sectors of the slabs began to be recovered. Existing facilities were changed. The adaptation process to the new functional programs was easy, since the building needed few modifications to accommodate the new requirements. Another issue to which we gave special importance was the recovery of the original colours, which is why a methodical investigation was carried out using samples processed in the laboratory. Finally, the original lateral façade was recovered because an annex body was demolished. The intervention always tries to respect the work as much as possible, so that its modernisation and refurbishment does not represent, as far as possible, formal or spatial repercussions for the work.