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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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 Eduard Callís Francesc Rafat Pau Albert Antoni López Daufí Joan Falgueras Mercè Bosch Jaume Farreny Anton Pàmies Juan Manuel Zaguirre Josep Ferrando Fernando Marzá Moisés Puente Aureli Mora Omar Ornaque

Collaborators:

2019-2024 Lluis Andreu Sergi Ballester Maria Jesús Quintero Lucía M. Villodres Montse Viu

External Collaborators:

2019-2024 Helena Cepeda Inès Martinel

With the support of:

Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de Cultura

Collaborating Entities:

ArquinFAD

 

Fundació Mies van der Rohe

 

Fundación DOCOMOMO Ibérico

 

Basílica de la Sagrada Família

 

Museu del Disseny de Barcelona

 

Fomento

 

AMB

 

EINA Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona

 

IEFC

 

Fundació Domènench Montaner.

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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Responsable del tractament: Col·legi d Arquitectes de Catalunya 'COAC'
Finalitat del tractament: Tramitar la sol·licitud de còpies digitals dels documents dels quals l’Arxiu Històric del COAC gestiona els drets d'explotació dels autors, a més d'aquells que es trobin en domini públic.
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Memory

Títol d'arquitecte: 29/07/1918
Estudià música al Conservatori del Liceu i pintura a l’escola d’art de Francesc d’A. Galí. Encara estudiant projectà un gran auditori de concerts d’estil classicista. Després d’unes reformes de cases que féu a Cerdanyola (1919-20) inicià una carrera que el situà entre els primers arquitectes catalans de la seva generació. Plenament imbuït de la mentalitat estètica del Noucentisme, intentà retrobar un estil genuïnament català i clàssic a la vegada i construí el Casal del Molí Vell a Gelida (1920-21) i la Casa Guarro a Sarrià (1921-23). Aviat sumà a aquests pressupòsits certes influències d’Arts Déco: cases al Carrer Ample número 46 (1923-24) i a la Via Laietana número 6 (1926-28), a Barcelona, i casa Oliver, a Sabadell (1925-26). Entre el 1928 i el 1930 construí la fàbrica Myrurgia de Barcelona, on hom ha detectat influències del formalisme de Perret. El projecte d’aquesta obra fou exposat, per especial invitació dels altres expositors, a la mostra d’arquitectura que a l’abril del 1929 organitzaren els futurs membres del GATCPAC a les Galeries Dalmau de Barcelona. Tanmateix ell només s’incorporà al nou grup com a soci numerari i seguí paral·lelament una tònica similar però menys rígida: casa Cervelló a Begues, projecte d’aeroport per a Barcelona (1932), xalet a Castelldefels (1932). Fou també l’autor, amb Josep Clarà, del monument d’Espanya a l’Uruguai (Montevideo, 1932) i de les cases de Pau Casals a Sant Salvador (Baix Penedès) i d’Eugeni Xammar a l’Ametlla del Vallès. Fou un enamorat del gòtic català i, contrari a les tesis de Le Corbusier —"la maison est une machine à habiter"—, preconitzà un funcionalisme que contraposava la improvisació de l’emoció a la rigidesa geomètrica. El 1928 i el 1933 fou objecte de ressonants homenatges. Fou president del primer Congrés d’Arquitectes de Llengua Catalana (1932) i del Saló de Montjuïc (1934). Com a pianista interpretà, sol o amb Pau Casals, amb Mercè Plantada o —a quatre mans— amb Wanda Landowska, obres de Schumann, Mozart, César Frank i sobretot J. S. Bach. Fou fundador i vicepresident de l’Associació de Musica da Camera de Barcelona (1929).
Germà del també arquitecte, Ramon Puig i Gairalt.

Source: Arxiu Històric del COAC

Works (8)

On the Map

Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works

Constellation

Chronology (8)

  1. Casal del Molí Vell

    Antoni Puig Gairalt

    Isolated building, located within the industrial complex of the Guarro paper factory. It has a rectangular plan and consists of a ground floor, a floor and an attic, under a gabled roof made of Arabic tiles. Access to the first floor is via an exterior staircase of two straight sections with a quarter-turn landing. On one of the sides there is a porch (currently closed), crowned at the height of the first floor by a terrace with balusters. The work, which collects treasonous constructive elements of the farmhouses, is inscribed within the noucentista language. The Casal del Molí Vell was built between 1920-1921 by the architect Antoni Puig i Gairalt, in order to install the staff canteen of the Guarro factory on the ground floor and the school and library on the first floor. The dining room is currently used as the headquarters of the company's offices and the library as a museum.
  2. CESE Housing Building

    Antoni Puig Gairalt

    CESE Housing Building

    Building between partitions occupying the corner between Via Laietana and Carrer Joan Massana. Both façades are articulated by means of the polygonal tower located on the corner. The block on Carrer Joan Massana has a ground floor, a mezzanine and five floors, while the tower and the block on Via Laietana have an additional floor. The façade on Via Laietana is very narrow. On the ground floor there is a large rectangular opening which corresponds to a commercial premises, and the facing is plain. On the mezzanine there are three windows separated by pillars that give the appearance of a large continuous window; all three are supported by a moulded sill and the rest of the wall is smooth. On the first four floors there are doors separated by pillars that open onto balconies with a stone base and iron railing; here the furnishings draw horizontal lines and the fourth level is finished off with a plain cornice. On the fifth floor there are two windows and the facing is plain, but the upper part is finished as if it were a large capital of a pilaster. The top level is half hidden by the decoration of the lower floor – it has a large horizontal window and the wall is finished with a moulded cornice. The façade on Carrer Joan Massana is much longer and is divided into three parts. The two lateral ones are similar to the façade of the Via Laietana and the central one has small balconies along three longitudinal axes and a smooth wall. The large cornice in the shape of a capital runs along the three sections, thus unifying the façade. The corner tower is in the shape of a half hexagon. The ground floor and mezzanine have similar characteristics to others, but in the central part there is a large relief by Joan Rebull, entitled Bañistas (Bathers), with allegorical motifs of the navy. On the first floor there is a polygonal tribune on each side of the tower, and on the upper floors there is a small balcony per floor, except on the top floor where there is a window with a moulded sill. The tower is crowned with the same capital cornice as the side façades. This building belongs to a period in which Antoni Puig i Gairalt was moving away from Noucentisme to adopt international Art Déco formulas that gradually brought him closer to rationalism. In the original project, the house was to be painted apple green, but the Town Council objected, considering it too extravagant. It was then painted blue and yellow, colours that were restored in 2016.
  3. Myrurgia Factory

    Antoni Puig Gairalt

    Myrurgia Factory

    The building is located in a block of houses on Barcelona's Dreta de l’Eixample, framed by Provença, Sicília, Mallorca and Nàpols Streets. Built on a polygonal plot, it has three façades open to 238 Nàpols Street and 351 Mallorca Street. These roads create the angle of the building, with the most relevant hinge that, projected in a chamfer, houses the main access to the building. This industrial building with offices is one of the best examples of Catalan architectural production of the 20s and 30s of the 20th century, not linked to the orthodoxy of the GATCPAC. It is characterised by its functionalist aesthetics of symmetrical shapes and marked horizontality, particularly representative in the case of the windows. The building is designed from a structure of metal pillars and girders that allow the creation of a free plan where space and transparency predominate and to which the skylights on the roofs contribute. It consists of two levels where the marked horizontality of the façades is particularly striking, accentuated by the body of curved windows developed on the two floors of the building. The windows respond to a model of serially manufactured metal openings that are joined to each other through "T" shaped profiles and to the building structure with other "L" shaped profiles. This system gives rise to the large wall locks that give unity to the whole and allow uniform lighting inside. These windows are configured as a curved element that rotates in the chamfer, while being interrupted in this front, where the large entrance portal to the building is located. The chamfer is configured as an element of structural relevance within the set, not only because of the differentiated treatment of the openings, but because of the greater height it presents. Thus, the ground floor is reserved for the entrance, with a triple door that gives access to a double-height hall, which also receives light from the windows arranged on the first floor of this chamfered front. Above this body of windows is the top floor, where an elongated bay window opens that goes from side to side of the wall. Currently, the building is quite modified. Towards the side of Nàpols Street, a hotel has recently been built (2010) - "Illa Myrurgia" - which takes up part of the original plot of the old factory. The chamfer side has also undergone renovations, and today houses the offices of the Puig company, which has owned the property since 2000. The ground floor of this area is now presented as a very open space which is accessed through a reception area located at the back of the main lobby. This area, in the form of a glass box, has two levels where the worktables of the Puig staff are distributed and which are connected by a new factory staircase. As already mentioned, one of the most relevant spaces in the complex - and apparently the only one preserved from the original project - is the lobby. Access to this space is through a door with three openings that is finished with three bronze panels with reliefs depicting classical themed scenes and below which the sign "Fábrica Myrurgia" is preserved. We must also highlight the iron fence of the door which, with very purist geometric lines, contributes to creating a simple decoration, non-existent in the rest of the façade. Once through the door, you enter the hall, which is configured as an independent, double-height space, with a careful art déco design and monumental intent. This monumentality is made visible through the double-section marble staircase that leads to the offices on the first floor. Currently, two catenaries block access to the staircase. The use of noble and high-quality materials such as marble stands out, which is combined with the brass railings and the wood of the handrails located on each side of the staircase. These elements, arranged at an angle, have a door and a bench - also wooden - attached to the structure, which are finished at the top with a window and a panel where you can read "Myrurgia Perfumes" in déco style letters. The factory was built between 1927 and 1930 with a project by Antoni Puig i Gairalt; this work anticipates the modern and rationalist language through the organisation of spaces, the treatment of light, signage and furniture. The sculptor Esteve Monegal Prat was the one who commissioned the project, and it was he who founded the company Myrurgia in 1916, destined to the production of perfumes and cosmetic products. The art deco sculpture made by Monegal, president and founder of the firm Myrurgia, which originally presided over the lobby should be noted. In 1929, the building received the Architecture Award of the Industrial and Commercial Buildings Competition for being equipped with some of the most modern facilities. In 2000, the company was acquired by the Puig Group, which since then has installed its offices in the building. In 1996, residents and neighbourhood organisations mobilised against the project to build a gas station and a private elite sports centre on the grounds of the former Myrurgia factory. In 2010, the block where the estate is located was plunged into controversy over the construction of the building that occupies part of the factory's original plot. In those days, on the corner of Nàpols and Provença Streets, a building was built that was originally intended as a residence for athletes and which eventually became a four-star hotel ("Illa Myrurgia") and a gym.

Bibliography (9)

Routes & Notes (1)

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