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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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: 
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Directors:
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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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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Chronology (16)
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Rambla de Catalunya Dwellings
b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa
The block of flats on Rambla de Catalunya is the result of the transformation of an office building designed in 1969 into a high-end residential complex. The comprehensive refurbishment maintains both the pre-existing structure and the height and is therefore delimited from the demolition and the total replacement with a new building. The intervention groups the ventilation of the houses and the stairs in a single central courtyard. The rectangular courtyard that is inserted in the middle of the floor is divided into two parts by a central element, a staircase of one section for each level and a walkway that runs parallel to the façade. The courtyard, which is commonly a secondary and often neglected element, becomes essential and acquires a presence in the building. It is confused with a coating of aluminum slats that capture natural light and direct it into the interior of the houses through voids sized according to the height. The new façade towards the Rambla de Catalunya is projected as a glazed enclosure, from floor to ceiling. A minimal matte green aluminum carpentry allows the opening of large sliding leaves. The neutrality of the wall covering is reinforced by establishing the railings inside. This enclosure is screened by an external plane of metal blinds with horizontal slats, which can be oriented according to the control of solar radiation. The property is inserted between different buildings both in time and in the language of their façades. Faced with the impossibility of establishing an articulated link, the façade is composed of neutrality and rigour. The modulation is strict and argues for a formal resignation that makes even the imposed lines of the floors disappear. The blind sheet, the orderly multiplication, forms the façade, condenses the domestic references in a respectful exercise that owes to some magnificent lessons of modernity in Barcelona. -
Agbar Tower
Ateliers Jean Nouvel, b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, Jean Nouvel, Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa
The Agbar Tower is a "small skyscraper" with 35 floors and a height of 142 m. Its shape mimics a constant-pressure, stabilised water fountain, an ideal image for a water company's corporate headquarters. Structurally, the building responds to a model of load-bearing core and outer perimeter that transmits the loads of floors free of intermediate supports. Constructively, these are two oval-shaped concrete cylinders supported by frames of metal beams that support corrugated steel sheet slabs and a layer of concrete. The eccentricity of the core organizes the standard floor: the free space is compressed in the elevator lobby and gradually expands, generating office space. The outer cylinder is straight until the 18th floor, where its generators begin to bend inward, gradually decreasing in section to the 26th. Here the concrete is interrupted and a glass dome with a metal structure ends the building. The last 6 floors, formed by post-stressed concrete slabs, are suspended in cantilever. The outer wall is "pixelated" according to an almost square module plot. The windows are arranged on this lattice, forming a "calligraphy": the density of perforations in the wall is conditioned, in part, by solar radiation. Following this framework, modules of lacquered aluminum sheet are placed in 25 different colours and a second skin of glass slats with different degrees of transparency that blur the tower. -
FAD Award
Finalist. Category: ArchitectureAgbar TowerPoblenou Central Park
b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, Jean Nouvel, Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa
"The Poblenou garden is designed as a stone architecture with vaults, ceilings, hypostyle rooms, domes, walls and terraces. But the matter is green or coloured, alive, natural and controlled. This architecture requires calm, silence" (Jean Nouvel). Competition in collaboration with Jean Nouvel Ateliers and with subsequent development of the execution project phases and construction management by b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos. It is a garden located in four irregular blocks at the meeting point between Pla Cerdà and Diagonal Avenue in Barcelona's Poble Nou district. Each block is surrounded by walls covered with vegetation in which thick and tall bougainvillea trees hide the enclosure and project the garden towards Diagonal Avenue. These walls protect a plantation of weeping willows and tipuanas distributed regularly on a mathematical plot of 9, 7 or 4 metres that take up two thirds of the garden's surface of intertwined branches, creating plant vaults and domes. Different situations and episodes occur in each area: a large circular square to host all types of festive events, colourful trees planted following a certain inclination in order to create "bouquets", walls covered with flowers in aquatic rooms, lounges with tables and chairs able to respond to the uses and customs of visitors of all ages: from dancing sardanas or playing boules to going for walks...Diagonal-Pallars Dwellings
b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa
This work is about the transformation of an old industrial space located between the stretch of Diagonal Avenue between Bilbao and Castella Streets, limited by Pere IV. The action includes two buildings with 42 and 27 homes. The design of the two buildings has the same volumes, with the historical significance of Cerdà’s Eixample in its respect for the mandatory alignments and its compliance with all the proposed urban planning parametres. The textures and materials of the panels used on the exterior façade, as well as the colour of jambs and lintels, correspond to the desire to give this typical volume a new image, in accordance with the time and the environment that emerges in its closest surroundings. The façades become, in this way, a kind of aesthetic bridge between the surrounding buildings. The buildings are built with a concrete structure and latticework. The design of the two buildings matches in their volume; in addition, the façades maintain the same composition criteria. In the construction system of the façade, C Fiber concrete panels with glass fiber are used, with visible fastening of rivets on an aluminum substructure. 1.80m deep balconies are randomly placed. The black concrete panels contrast with the orange lacquered aluminum window frames. The interior façade is composed of white concrete, jambs of the same colour and dark grey carpentry. In addition, there are some mobile curtains of 3x3m. On the façades of the interior courtyard, we find a 1.50m deep balcony, running along the façade.FAD Award
Finalist. Category: ArchitectureIndra OfficesCity of Justice
b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, David Chipperfield Architects, David Chipperfield, Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa
The previous situation of the City of Justice presented the different judicial departments of the city of Barcelona and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat scattered in 17 buildings, distributed between the two cities. The unification of all of them into a new City of Justice results in greater efficiency, allows workspaces to adapt to the constant transformation of the judiciary and, at the same time, reserves some space for future growth. The most significant proposal of the project is to fragment the ambitious program - of 241,519.92 m2 of built surface - in a series of separate but interrelated buildings, which are arranged on a space thought to be a public square. The buildings are revealed as measured blocks, with load-bearing façades of reinforced and coloured concrete. The proposal aims to balance the different relationships between work areas, public areas and the landscape. The atrium building becomes the main public space of the complex and it is where people communicate with each other, as well as constituting the main circulation path of the Judicial City. It acts as a distribution channel and as a filter for access to court offices. With only four heights, its volumetric impact is lower. This element also makes it possible to articulate the entrances to the City of Justice and at the same time provide them with a space for presentation and an indispensable relationship in an intervention of this nature. Regarding the material, the façades are made of coloured reinforced concrete. Made in situ, the pigment is added in the dosage and not a posteriori. While smooth texture is noticeable in close perception, colour plays a key role on a global scale. The diversity of volumes and their undifferentiated treatment are complemented by the colouring that identifies each of the buildings: six colours for eight buildings. Pigments are basically iron oxides except green, which is chromium oxide. Among its most notable features, they are stable, indissoluble and inert, keeping the qualities of colour intact over time.Indra Offices
b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, Enrique Álvarez-Sala Walther, Carlos Rubio Carvajal, Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa
This is a corporate office building located on a trapezoidal lot registered as part of the actions planned for the 22@ sector of Barcelona. The total built surface is 10,375 m and consists of a ground floor and 12 additional floors. The ones located above ground are destined for offices, and on the floors below ground level we can find the parking lot for up to 40 vehicles and the technical rooms, for private use. The formation of a high-rise building on a more solid and compact piece of plinth is proposed, with a ground floor and two floors, aligned with Tànger Street. The emergent piece, with a rhomboid plan, follows the outline of the chamfer, without mimetically reproducing it, to reinforce the slender and complex appearance of the resulting volume. The 10-storey tower is separated from the plinth by the technical floor, set back from the façade plan, in such a way that it "floats" on the base, providing it with lightness. As it is a corporate building, diaphanous floors are considered, although the possibility that in the future the floors could be divided into different units is being studied. The façade is made up of stainless-steel metal fabric panels that act as perimeter solar protection (with a shadow coefficient of 50%) for the interior of the building, and at the same time they provide lightness to the whole building. A quarter of these panels have a stamp in the shape of a sphere of 90 cm in diameter made by embossing. These are placed in two positions at the height of the panel, folding both inwards and outwards.EU Mies Award
NominatedCity of JusticePorta Fira Towers
b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects, Toyō Itō, Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa
Located between Barcelona’s airport and the city, the Torres Fira project becomes the access portal to the new exhibition centre in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. Responding to its environment and taking advantage of the plot's strategic position between two major projects -Plaça Europa and Fira 2000-, acting as a gateway and bridge between the two, is its main priority. The office building, with an orthogonal geometry, is placed perpendicular to the vertebral axis of Plaça Europa, projected at 30º with respect to Gran Via, it transforms into an end for the square and dialogues with the limit located symmetrically on the other corner of Gran Via (two orthogonal towers perpendicular to this axis). The hotel uses a similar language: the building. With a subtle clover-shaped plant, it rotates as it grows and its top opens like a flower. The complex is made up of a tower that turns on itself, and during its movement it greets the city, the airport, Plaça Europa and the fairgrounds – its perception changing as it surrounds it. This perception is complemented by the second tower, which at first glance is a pure volume, but which contains a core that also rotates on itself, a reflection of the other tower.Lleida-Alguaire Airport
b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa
La torre de control de l’aeroport d’Alguaire es concep com una obra singular que va més enllà de la pròpia estructura, integrant els projectes de la terminal i els edificis annexos. Torre i base tenen una superfície total de 4.942 m2. La torre es projecta com un edifici de 42 metres d’alçada, format per dos volums principals: la torre, que acull les funcions específiques de control aeronàutic, i la base, que rep el programa administratiu i tècnic. Ambdues queden unides per la corba que dibuixa la coberta de la primera planta i que es converteix en façana de la torre. Aquesta coberta es perllonga fins a fondre’s harmònicament amb l’edifici de la terminal i els edificis tècnics. La unitat visual de l’aeroport s’aconsegueix amb la cobertura de tota la façana de fusta i xapa metàl·lica de tons verds, ocres i grocs que contribueixen a la seva integració amb el paisatge circumdant. La coberta compte amb una capa vegetal combinada amb franges de fusta i xapa. Aquesta combinació emula la trama vegetal-agrícola de l’entorn i del paisatge típic de la plana de Lleida.Costa Brava Grand Casino
b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa
El del Gran Casino Costa Brava consisteix en una singular proposta arquitectònica i mediambiental, pràctic i singular alhora. El nou casino s’allunya de les solucions tradicionals i planteja el complex d’aparcament públic, casino i auditori com un conjunt que emergeix del sòl i del qual es distingeixen tres nivells ben diferenciats i integrats en l’entorn. El casino s’integra com a part dels jardins de l’hotel Monterrey aconseguint revitalitzar la façana sud del mateix i potenciar el front urbà amb una àmplia zona lúdica i de serveis. D’aquesta manera, l’edifici es manifesta amb una singularitat en la via pública, al mateix temps que roman ocult, convertit en topografia, des de l’interior del jardí del hotel. La coberta enjardinada esmorteeix l’impacte visual i, a més, protegeix a l'hotel de la contaminació acústica provinent la carretera. L’edifici consta de tres nivells ben diferenciats. En la planta baixa, se situa el casino, distribuït en diverses àrees que formen part del mateix espai principal. La planta primera allotja un espai multifuncional amb capacitat per a mil persones assegudes. A més, aquest nivell compta amb un gran foyer obert a l’exterior, els serveis i les oficines de gestió. D’altra banda, tres plantes del baix restant es destinen principalment a aparcament. Els plans inclinats que conformen les façanes es resolen mitjançant formigó armat negre acolorit en massa i encofrats amb encadellat de pi. La planta que acull l’espai polivalent queda delimitada per una sèrie de plans de formigó que evoquen la tectònica del terreny del qual sorgeixen. Els plans s'obren en gelosia enfront de l'espai del foyer mitjançant una façana que proporciona identitat al casino gràcies a un sistema digital d'il·luminació que s'estén cap a la marquesina. Aquesta il·luminació multimèdia, capaç de reproduir imatges en moviment controlades per un sistema de gestió centralitzat i un programari específic per a crear efectes lumínics segons les activitats del casino.EU Mies Award
NominatedLleida-Alguaire AirportFAD Award
Shortlisted. Category: ArchitecturePorta Fira TowersNew Market of Els Encants
b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa
European public tender for the construction of the New Encants Market in Barcelona. Convened by Barcelona City Council through the municipal company BIMSA, the decision was made public on April 22, 2008. The new Barcelona Encants market is being installed as a mediation device between the reform of Les Glòries Square and the Meridiana axis, an area popularly known as the Bosquet de les Glòries. The proposal suggests a platform (or commercial square) which continues on several levels as an ideal surface for all commercial activities. By folding the platform, the different levels of the street are reconciled, understanding the market as a large, covered square, capable of instilling activity in all parts of the program. The roof, the main element of urban recognition, protects commercial activities while becoming a mechanism for reflection of the city towards the interior of the market. Each structural module will have different inclinations to reflect light, atmosphere and landscape.Mostres d'Arquitectura (Barcelona)
Shortlisted. Category: Edificis amb Ús No Residencial. Inclou Edificis de Nova Planta de Promoció PúblicaNew Market of Els EncantsBibliography (13)
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