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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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
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2019-2024 Aureli Mora i Omar OrnaqueDocumental 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 OrnaqueCollaborators:
2019-2024 Lluis Andreu Sergi Ballester Maria Jesús Quintero Lucía M. Villodres Montse ViuExternal Collaborators:
2019-2024 Helena Cepeda Inès MartinelWith the support of:
Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de CulturaCollaborating Entities:
ArquinFADFundació 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.
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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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Arquitecte. Titulat el 1979. Estudià a l’ETSAB i a la Universitat de Columbia. Va formar estudi amb Carme Pinós de 1982 a 1990, realitzant obres com el Cementiri d’Igualada, premi FAD 1991 o l’ Escola la Llauna (1986). Del 1990-1994 s’establí pel seu compte i l’any 1994 formà estudi amb Benedetta Tagliablue, realitzant obres com el Mercat de Santa Caterina (1997-2005), o el Parlament d’Escòcia (1999-2004)
Source: Arxiu Històric del COAC
Works (19)
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Chronology (33)
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Pergolas in Major Square
Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat
These roofs are the first step to make the square possible again, to create a new centre defined by its shadows. Now, these roofs attract the eye and are the place to start thinking about the next interventions. The construction mechanism is identical to its drawing: a main beam in successive contractions forms the surface on which to support each of the roofs. A pillar is the support of two of these. Finding a line inside, following it as if it were a path... then, the most elementary geometry is formed, the one that follows someone's impulses. We find inside what we call a project. -
La Llauna Secondary School
Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat
La Llauna Secondary School is a project by Enric Miralles and Carme Pinós to refurbish and adapt an early 20th century factory – the Gottardo Factory of Andreis Metalgraf Española, popularly known as ‘La Llauna’ – to convert it into a secondary school in Badalona. One of the most remarkable strategies of the project is its positioning with respect to what was there beforehand. Certain key points of the building are spared to improve the quality of the spaces and the relationship between them, as well as to highlight the intervention within the original building. At other points, however, the building is simply stripped bare or underlain by the addition of new volumes that generate new spaces. The result is an intervention that respects the pre-existence, resignifying it and making it part of the new functioning of the building. The access, located on Carrer de Sagunt, is one of the examples of the strategy explained. This is configured by means of a large metal sliding door that draws a curve in the floor with its opening. This is fitted into a vertical strip in the façade formed by openings in the upper floors, emptying the original façade and highlighting the entrance to the new school through this new fitting. The access gives way to a large free ground floor, which is designed as the ample space that is lacking in the street through which the school is accessed, leaving only the original structure of the factory and cornering off the essential services such as the caretaker's office or the secretary's office. This design of the ground floor as a new public space is reinforced by the placement of typical urban elements such as lampposts and bicycle racks. The stairwell can be accessed through the ground floor, on the side where the services such as the concierge's office are located, directly via stairs, and on the side of this new free space, via three large ramps that complement the desired experience in this large space and stop at the height of the lattice beams that support the forging. From this point, stairs continue the access to the hall situated on the first floor, designed as a meeting point between the classrooms located on the first floors. The hall is presented as a large double-height space thanks to the hollowing out of the floor slabs, which allows visual relations to be established with the upper and lower floors, becoming a balcony over the entrance. The materials used in the intervention are mainly three: concrete block, iron and wood. The first two materials are already present in the original building, leaving wood as an element that brings warmth and domesticity to the spaces and breaks with the typical factory aesthetic. Thus, concrete blocks are mainly used in the new interior enclosures, while iron is used for the structure of the lighter elements supported by the original structure, such as staircases or entrance devices. Wood often complements the metal structure by forming the steps, handrails or even the flooring, and is also used for elements such as benches. -
FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Interior Design - RehabilitationLa Llauna Secondary SchoolThe New Igualada Cemetery
Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat
El cementiri és concebut com un parc, com “la casa dels vius”, un lloc on gaudir del sol i la tranquil·litat qualsevol dia de la setmana. La configuració del parc aprofita un promontori del terreny per fer-hi un trau longitudinal i crear un recorregut de baixada en ziga-zaga, fins a arribar a un rierol situat uns metres més avall. El projecte complet preveia els tres braços de la ziga-zaga, si bé en la primera fase només se n’ha construït un i s’insinua el començament del segon. Els nínxols es disposen a banda i banda del recorregut formant terrasses intermèdies. Uns passos transversals faciliten l’accés a les terrasses laterals, generant un moviment d’ascensió i de descens carregat de connotacions al·legòriques. La construcció dels grups de nínxols es fa sempre amb peces prefabricades de formigó, com també els revestiments dels murs de contenció. El resultat és que els morts es troben sempre sota terra, i els visitants del parc baixen fins al nivell inferior fins a situar-se al mateix nivell dels morts. La capella se situa a l’entrada del recorregut, induint a un ritual que comença amb el funeral i baixa fins a cada nínxol. Enric Miralles és enterrat en un dels panteons que voregen la plaça que marca el gir entre el primer braç i el segon.Premi Ciutat de Barcelona
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Architecture and UrbanismArchery RangePremi Ciutat de Barcelona
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Architecture and UrbanismInstal·lacions de Competició de Tir amb ArcFAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner (ex aequo). Category: Buildings of new plant for public useThe New Igualada CemeteryArchery Range
Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat
The archery facilities are, in fact, the training facilities of this sport built for the 1992 Olympic Games. The competition facilities were on the other side of Granja Vella Street, originally built by the same architects but currently gone. The surviving building is one of the clearest tributes to Park Güell ever built. Like the park, it is configured from the retaining walls that support and limit the upper pedestrian walkway. These retaining walls bend and work organically based on the athletes’ movements as they train. The building consists of covering one of this wall’s folds with a folded roof, an extension of the upper landscape. Mechanical ceramics, together with concrete and cement, form the unique material of the whole intervention. The structures look unstable, crooked, or twisted, depending on the pushing force of the lands they contain. A system of porches covers much of the retaining wall that forms the building, extends it externally, blurs its limits and protects the dry stone that forms them. The roofs have an approximate modulus of the wall’s height and are made up of a series of concrete slabs that slide together with a series of lower gutters that collect and conduct water towards some practiced puddles in the pavement. The interior of the building is paved with curved and exposed ceramic walls that form the dressing rooms and leave the common areas against the back wall. It forms a “landscape that looks at itself”, said Enric Miralles, which is illuminated zenithally through the cracks in the roof and leaving spaces of great beauty, although a little degraded today. The vegetation has been growing from the time when the construction was built until the present day, and it confuses the buildings with a renaturalised environment that introduces additional complexity to the complex.Hostalets de Balenyà Civic Centre
Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat
El programa requeria incloure les dependències pròpies d’un centre cívic en un solar de la perifèria dels Hostalets de Balenyà. Miralles i Pinós conceben un edifici que dóna l’esquena al poble i creen una façana transparent que genera un espai públic propi, a l’altra banda del carrer. Les dependències més petites del programa (tallers, aules, despatxos) es col·loquen penjades a les plantes superiors, formades per un sistema de bigues de gelosia que s’obren en ventall i que tenen l’alçària d’una planta. Aquest ventall determina el jardí interior i el gran buit que queda a sota, que és una sala d’actes per a 300 persones. El programa és interpretat de forma jeràrquica i en combinació amb la lectura del lloc, de manera que l’edifici podria allotjar programes amb un repartiment semblant. Les escales d’accés a les golfes abracen l’edifici per totes dues bandes, una per l’interior i l’altra per l’exterior.La Mina Social Centre
Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat
It is an attempt at a construction on a grand scale. These rooves that here are floors and balconies, might be rooves of a garden: it is a construction that makes the necessity of thinking of the the building envelope disappear... The upper surface of concrete solves the problem of the acoustic deficiencies and the room and gives a new dimension to this place to achieve a scenic space where the positions of the actor and public are interchangeable. The balconies are possible places of representation, but also walking arcades. In between the pillars looks like the best place to position the panels of the exhibitions. One should visit this place like the annexe of a local park and for this reason the calligraphy goes out to the exterior.Garau-Agustí House
Enric Miralles i Moya, Carme Pinós i Desplat
This house is mainly a wall, shaped by the movements of the furniture which tries to find its correct position into the room. The interior of a room! The delicate movements of the furniture then enter the garden which forms a continuity with the interior of the house. The back of the house runs on the limit of the urbanistic permission of the piece of land. This limit is the edge used to support the geometry of the house, which finds its place into the strict limitations of the soil. The real façade of the house is in the back, where an important piece of garden grows beneath the perimetral walls of the house and of the garden.FAD Award
Finalist. Category: Interiorisme - Obres de Decoració d'Espais InteriorsLa Mina Social CentreFAD Award
Finalist. Category: Arquitectura - Edificis de Nova Planta, Obres de Reforma o Rehabilitació d'Edificis ExistentsHostalets de Balenyà Civic CentreCamy-Nestlé Industrial Overpass
The programme called for the construction of a bridge that would serve as a connection between two buildings of the same factory separated by one of the streets of the industrial estate. The bridge allows the passage of employees and the provision of two conveyor belts for packaged material, electrical conduits and power conduits for cold processes. The structural section groups the different loads and offers a specific solution for each one, taking into account the lags caused by load variations. The pedestrian crossing is formed by a section of post-tensioned concrete that supports a system of prefabricated elements that allow light to enter.Mercaders House
Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue
House in the old town of Barcelona. Behind a false wall with a series of Gothic arches, a capital in the shape of an angel emerged, with its index finger indicating the heart... It has been a job of cleaning, approaching and discovering the intensity of the use of the construction… Always the same walls... and floors, used and reused from the Gothic era to today... Learning to live with a given structure, like looking inside the pockets of an old coat, depositing found things on a clean surface... This house works like a chessboard. The pieces move according to the rules of each object... They always have to return to the starting point to start the game again... In this sense, the floor, which repositions the existing pieces in front of the windows, or the painting of the walls that reveals the fragments found, are the rules of the game... Tables, books and chairs move in an orderly manner between them...La Clota House
Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue
The Clota district, close to the Vall d’Hebron, is one of the few places in Barcelona where we can still find some orchards and agricultural buildings on the ground floor and the first floor. The project addresses the renovation and merging of two of these buildings to form a single dwelling. The existing spaces had very small dimensions, which is why some holes have been opened in the various rooms and natural light has been allowed to enter. The structure of the existing buildings has been maintained, although the slab of one of the two houses has been emptied to double the height of the library, and a new façade has been built in the garden in order to expand the house a little bit. The resulting house combines pre-existing elements and new additions in such a way that they are indistinguishable, simulating the reform of the new facings or by the materials’ finishing touches. The new construction procedures used mimic the procedures of the old houses and some structural elements are visible, such as the wooden crossbeams of the library’s casting.FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Interior DesignLa Clota HouseGames House at the Güell Estate
Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue
Diagonal Mar Park
Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue
The park is the backbone of the various housing complexes that make up Diagonal Mar. It organises the huge plot, a few blocks long, that forms the group of housing complexes that Diagonal Mar constitutes by means of a counterdiagonal perpendicular to Diagonal Avenue, as a reserve of space that connects the buildings rear with the sea, across the plot, by means of a bridge that has not yet been built. Groundwater (already present on the ground) is the park's guiding thread. The entire northern part, up to Taulat Street, is arranged around a lake with an irregular outline, on several levels and with waterfalls between them that oxygenate the water and prevent it from oxidising. Fountains with an almost calligraphic design, consisting of galvanised metal profiles folded in on themselves in an almost vegetal grouping, spray water and make the northern beginning of the park unique, as well as its contact with Diagonal. The park presents a series of circuits for pedestrians at various speeds, like walks, which allow you to enjoy the free space it creates. The most prominent feature consists of exuberant vegetation, mostly native, which includes more than 35 different species of trees and an enormous variety of carpeting shrub species, some of which are within the lake itself. Pergolas of a unique design contribute to shading the living and playing areas, by means of low-height vegetation (such as vines and asparagus) that grows on metal mesh and forms natural umbrellas over the heads of the users. The fences of the park are not arranged around the perimeter of the park but create pockets that tend to confuse the inside and the outside, passing through the middle of the flowerbeds and leaving parts of the park outside, on the street. The complex is very pleasant to stroll through, colourful and sensual in the tradition of the best modernist parks in Catalonia. It is very different from the rest of the parks designed in the country in recent years.FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner (ex aequo). Category: Outdoor SpacesEls Colors ParkPremio Década
Award-Winner / WinnerPergolas on Icària AvenueFAD Award
Finalist. Category: Outdoor SpacesDiagonal Mar ParkPremi Ciutat de Barcelona
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Architecture and UrbanismRemodelling and Rehabilitation of the Old Santa Caterina MarketGas Natural Headquarters
Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue
The building recovers the former grounds of the Gas Company, which has been converted into a park presided over by the new headquarters. The new tower is decomposed into four well-differentiated bodies, with the aim of assuming its uniqueness and establishing a dialogue with the elements of the environment: the passage of the coastal belt, on one side, and the low houses on the other side. These four volumes have a name that identifies them: the tower is the tallest, H-shaped volume, formed by the union of two narrower bodies of different heights. The bracket is a body attached to the tower that, through its lower surface, marks the entrance to the entire building. The aircraft carrier is a long, low, cantilevered body that restores the tower’s ladder horizontally and faces the entrance, along with the corbel. The fourth body is the waterfall, a volume attached to the ground with a stepped façade that restores the staircase of the surrounding buildings. All four bodies are articulated as parts of the same conception, and the glass enclosure of each part collects the shadows of the neighbouring bodies, in a game of transparencies and reflections that give rise to an unreal and dematerialised image.Enric Miralles Library
Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Enric Miralles i Moya, Benedetta Tagliabue
Some books and a dream... The building is a construction in a garden… It does not keep any memory Of the institutional nature of libraries. ….They are walls that perhaps were in this place. We have been trying through different paths To give the library a maze type of gravity. A series of rooms and gardens assembled in a non-linear way. The building is an experiment that uses each development of the project… Its continuous changes and variations, As well as the authority to accept the result… Just a curiosity: The Isozaki Sports Palace is Our neighbour. And Palafolls, led by its mayor Valentí Agustí, is building a city where he asks us architects to build according to our dreams.EU Mies Award
NominatedGas Natural HeadquartersFAD Award
Finalist. Category: ArchitectureEnric Miralles LibraryAudiovisual
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2:29:57
1987 - Enric Miralles - Conferencia tarda (14.12.1987)
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1:38:34
Homenatge a Enric Miralles, amb Beatriz Colomina i Mark Wigley
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1:26:52
Enric Miralles. Ensenyar Aprendre
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59:26
Homenatge a Enric Miralles, amb Soraya Smithson, Joan Roig i Benedetta Tagliabue
Bibliography (120)
Routes & Notes (4)
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