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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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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: 
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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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Headquarters of Barcelona Activa
Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur
The building that was to be rehabilitated – the former facilities of the Hispano Olivetti company – is located in an area of the city of Barcelona that is undergoing a rapid transformation. The traditional isolation suffered by this part of the city will be resolved with the opening of roads that will definitively connect the rest of the city. These circumstances explain the acquisition and conversion of a building like the one we are dealing with, despite its current isolation. The building was built around the 1950s and consists of basements and three floors. Its structure is made of reinforced concrete and is composed of large pillars paired with turnbuckles that help to save the large lights in the forge and is in a way a replica of the adjacent building, Industries Olivetti, and that due to its interest in structural expressiveness, deserves to be preserved. The project had to transform the current free floor into another one compartmentalised into small workshops of variable surface area between 30 and 100m2, capable of hosting the various activities of a business creation centre. In the organisation of the new plant, the cores of vertical access, staircase, elevator and freight elevator are maintained and a new external fire escape is added, in accordance with current fire regulations. The distribution of the workshops is made with painted concrete block walls up to 2.40m high, with the intention of maintaining a unitary ceiling that allows a better perception of the space and at the same time facilitates the natural lighting of the plant, as well as a more practical and rational layout of the facilities. The privacy of each workshop is ensured by the placement of metal fabric meshes hanging from the ceiling, which isolate each workshop, both from the adjacent one and from the general accesses. In front of the existing building is placed a small construction that houses the offices of the centre; its position qualifies the accesses to the centre, one pedestrian and the other wheeled, for the goods that reach the floors from the basement. A large translucent canopy is also built to protect the entrance to the buildings and the loading dock in the basement. -
FAD Award
Finalist. Category: Architecture - Remodelling and RehabilitationHeadquarters of Barcelona ActivaMartínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur
