Intro

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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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

credits

About us

Project by:

Created by:

Directors:

2019-2024 Aureli Mora i Omar Ornaque

Documental 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 Ornaque

External Collaborators:

2019-2024 Lluis Andreu Sergi Ballester Helena Cepeda Inès Martinel Maria Jesús Quintero

With the support of:

Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de Cultura

Collaborating Entities:

ArquinFAD

 

Fundació 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

Design & Development:

edittio Nubilum
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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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  • Barcelona Radio Station

    Nicolau Maria Rubió i Tudurí

    Barcelona Radio Station

    Radio Barcelona was established in 1922 and began broadcasting in 1924 from the Hotel Colón in Barcelona. The station's antennas were located on top of Tibidabo and it was necessary to build a building for the machines, which Rubió i Tudurí was commissioned to do. However, we have to mention a problem with dates. Rubió himself attributes the start of the project in 1922. However, as Antonio Pizza specifies, the plans are dated from 1929. In his book ‘Dialogues on architecture’ from 1927, Rubió introduces the thought of Le Corbusier in Catalonia, a rationalism which is already reflected in this pavilion. The Radio Barcelona station contains machines and transmitters, but also some rooms for visits and receptions that are reminiscent of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. This project and the 1934 Goldwin Meyer Metro building in Barcelona are two projects linked to the audiovisual world that express the modernity of these new technologies. However, throughout his career, Rubió worked interchangeably with various styles, depending on the demands of the assignment. He also developed various restorations and historicist proposals, such as the Monastery of Montserrat and the Convent of Pedralbes.

    1922 - 1929

  • 1934

  • 1971

  • 1972

  • 1972 - 1975

  • Telephone Exchange

    Bach-Mora Arquitectes, Jaume Bach i Núñez, Gabriel Mora i Gramunt

    Telephone Exchange

    En el punt de confluència de les fortuïtes alineacions de carrers d’una barriada vertical contemporània de Reus, es situa aquesta peça composada, com és usual, de dos parts desiguals: equip i oficines. La decisió de tractar-les de forma unitària, en continuïtat, i la corba de la façana com a mitjà de transcendir els límits irregulars del solar, són les dues decisions principals, tot i que, conceptualment, l'horitzontalitat de les finestres es planteja com a opció, des de l'idea del públic, a la verticalitat dominant de la multiplicitat del privat.

    1986 - 1990

  • Telephone Exchange and Teleport

    Clotet, Paricio & Associats, Lluís Clotet i Ballús, Ignacio Paricio i Ansuategui

    Telephone Exchange and Teleport

    The initial programme for this project described a building complex that was to house the facilities for the treatment and reception of satellite signals, a telephone exchange and premises for the management and sale of these services. These functions were grouped in the two main buildings: a representative building with offices and an exhibition hall with a small bar, as well as a technical building which is the teleport itself. The programme also included a security control and premises for conventional installations. Of all this, only the technical building and those of installations and control have been built. In the technical building, the importance of the network of connections and its frequent modification due to technological innovations finally led to a square floor plan completely surrounded by a perimeter corridor of access and service. To complete the effectiveness of this corridor and the flexibility of the connections, numerous vertical ducts have been placed that allow the direct passage of the installations from the ground floor to all the others, including the roof. A certain homogeneity in the premises that make up the building, the margin of the surfaces and the security with which an evolutionary programme must be treated led to solving the plan with an orthogonal plot. A circular concrete pillar is placed in each of its nodes, and the partitions are always placed within the lines of this grid. It is therefore a perfectly isotropic porticoed structure, in which the enclosures are totally subordinated to the organisation of the framework. Construction and design problems are concentrated, as always, at the edges. To support the corridor, the perimeter pillars are deformed, hinged from a certain height to support some prefabricated slabs located at the height of the false ceiling of the interior premises. The technical building is surrounded by a light enclosure made up of glass and practicable aluminum carpentry, which accompanies the perimeter corridors on the two upper floors and, through them, provides light and views to the work premises. This closure is interrupted in all corners of the building.

    1989 - 1991

  • Telephone Exchange in Vila Olímpica

    Bach-Mora Arquitectes, Jaume Bach i Núñez, Gabriel Mora i Gramunt

    Telephone Exchange in Vila Olímpica

    The Special Plan for the Olympic Village proposes a series of door-to-door buildings, straddling the end of the Eixample and the town's own layout, next to the sea. These are unique buildings not intended for residence but for various activities, such as services. Icària Avenue becomes one of the main commercial areas of the town and has four of these unique buildings. Telefónica's head office is located at the confluence with Joan d’Àustria Street. We have proposed it as the union of two independent bodies, both functionally and aesthetically. They are connected by a bridge over the street and a common basement. The volume of the rectangular floor, practically blind, contains the telephone equipment and machinery, while the elliptical and glazed, the offices. The prismatic body is clad in stone, with a collapsed façade that recedes to get more interior space. The elliptical one is covered with corrugated aluminum sheet, adopting this geometry to achieve slimness, as it has a lower height. The junction above the street contains the communication ramps and a multipurpose rest room with mountain and sea views. The two figures create an interesting formal tension with what these symbolic buildings of the town imply, solving the heavy iconographic problem of a step, bridge or portal and offering a convenient image of a public building.

    1989 - 1992

  • Montjuïc Telecommunications Tower

    Santiago Calatrava Architects & Engineers, Santiago Calatrava i Valls

    Montjuïc Telecommunications Tower

    An inclined concrete shaft, with the centre of gravity at the base coinciding with the vertical result of its own weight, is supported by three points on a circular platform of reinforced concrete lined with stone, which is accessed through a 30-metre arch. The platform is closed by a sheet metal door that is driven by a hydraulic motor that, when set in motion - a rotation of 90 degrees - suggests an effect on the eyelid, something which was already experienced by Calatrava in other works. The tower is 130 metres high and is crowned by a semicircular element that houses the technical facilities and a vertical pole, a javelin suspended in the air. The inclination of the shaft coincides with the angle of the summer solstice in Barcelona, so that the shadow it casts on the circular platform forms a sundial.
  • Collserola Telecommunications Tower

    Norman Foster

    Collserola Telecommunications Tower

    Foster tackles the program of a communications tower by applying the maximum of technological innovations to achieve the maximum height, the minimum diameter and, therefore, the maximum slenderness. Located 440 meters above sea level, the tower is 288 meters high, and the lookout platform is 135 meters above the ground. A single compression element, made of concrete, supports the body of the platforms for the antennas, which is only 4.50 metres in diameter. All stability weighs on a system of nine steel cables, grouped in threes, which work exclusively in tension and prevent an oscillating motion. The upper cables, which support the antenna, are made of copper fibre, which does not conduct electricity. The same requirements with more conventional means would have generated a diameter of 25 metres. Due to its position and the uniqueness of its profile, the tower has become one of the city’s landmarks.

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