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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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:
2019-2023 Aureli Mora i Omar OrnaqueDocumental Commission:
2019-2023 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:
2019-2023 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.
Memory
The new headquarters of the Gustavo Gili publishing house occupy the inner courtyard of a block of houses in the Eixample distract, usually full of basements for garages, warehouses and similar uses. As it is a highly atomised program that required numerous easements, the building is divided into three clearly differentiated bodies. The central body houses the commercial and technical offices. This body faces the entrance garden, from where it is accessed through a double-height lobby, the only space with clearly visible court and architectural connotations. The body on the left houses the address and its outbuildings. The body on the right is intended for storage and packaging, and is clearly separated from the previous two. The structure forms a grid independent of the enclosures and adopts a different module in each of the bodies, which appear differentiated in the solution of the roof.
The publishing house is located in an inner courtyard of a block in Barcelona's Eixample, leaving a large access space so that vehicles can turn around. This would be the main idea of the project.
Currently, a bridge building has been built that closes the block, but since it is raised on pilotis, it is possible to continue seeing the interior of the block from the street. The tradition of taking up the interiors of blocks with productive activity follows the industrial tradition from the mid-19th century to the end of the 20th century. A model that has generated a compact, mixed-use urban system that combines housing, commerce and industry, and intensifies urban activity.
The publishing complex is made up of three low-rise buildings, with a ground floor plus a first floor, each of which houses a different part of the program: management, offices and warehouse. The language is very radical, and a colour treatment is carried out that accentuates the architectural forms, generating an atmosphere that transports us to the settings and locations of Alfred Hitchcock's films: these are the years of North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960).
This building won the FAD award in 1961.
Authors
On the Map
Constellation
Cronology
-
Headquarters of Gustavo Gili Publishers
Francesc Bassó i Birulés, Joaquim Gili i Moros
The new headquarters of the Gustavo Gili publishing house occupy the inner courtyard of a block of houses in the Eixample distract, usually full of basements for garages, warehouses and similar uses. As it is a highly atomised program that required numerous easements, the building is divided into three clearly differentiated bodies. The central body houses the commercial and technical offices. This body faces the entrance garden, from where it is accessed through a double-height lobby, the only space with clearly visible court and architectural connotations. The body on the left houses the address and its outbuildings. The body on the right is intended for storage and packaging, and is clearly separated from the previous two. The structure forms a grid independent of the enclosures and adopts a different module in each of the bodies, which appear differentiated in the solution of the roof. -
FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Architecture
Headquarters of Gustavo Gili Publishers