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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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

Suggestion box

Request the image

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.

Detail:

* If the memory has known authorship or rights, cite them in the field above 'Comments' .

Remove * If the photographs has known authorship or rights, cite them in the field above 'Comments'.
You can attach up to 5 files of up to 10 MB each.

Informació bàsica de protecció de dades

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.
Legitimació del tractament: El seu consentiment per tractar les seves dades personals.
Destinatari de cessions o transferències: El COAC no realitza cessions o transferències internacionals de dades personals.
Drets de les persones interessades: Accedir, rectificar i suprimir les seves dades, així com, l’exercici d’altres drets conforme a l’establert a la informació addicional.
Informació addicional: Pot consultar la informació addicional i detallada sobre protecció de dades en aquest enllaç

Memory

Va néixer el 23 d’Abril de 1907 i va morir l’onze de Març de 1989. Obtingué el títol d'arquitecte el nou d'agost de 1930 a l'Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona. Va desenvolupar una extensa carrera com a arquitecte, realitzant nombroses col·laboracions amb arquitectes com Lorenzo García-Barbón Fernández de Henestrosa i Francesc Mitjans i Miró. Val a dir també, que va exercir d'arquitecte en cap de la Unitat Operativa de l'Ajuntament de Barcelona. De la seva producció cal destacar els plans parcials del sector final de la Diagonal, Santa Coloma, Zona Nord de la Diagonal i les Corts, i els projectes de l'Estadi del Fútbol Club Barcelona, El Palau d'esports de Barcelona, l'antic estadi del R.C.E. Espanyol i les "Vivendes" del Congrés Eucarístic. A més, és l'autor d’edificis singulars, entre els que trobem l'edifici Euro Gran Via S.A. (Gran Via-Lepant), el conjunt industrial de Henkel Ibérica S.A, la Fábrica lámparas Z, els tallers de la Hispano-Olivetti i l'edifici de la Llave de Oro a la plaça Josep Tarradellas.

Source: Arxiu Històric del COAC

Works (35)

On the Map

Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works

Constellation

Chronology (36)

  1. Lluís Jara Urbano House

    Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Lluís Jara Urbano House

    Large building located in La Bonanova neighbourhood. It takes up the end of a narrow block of houses, which means that it has three façades: a large one that faces Ronda General Mitre and two narrower ones on Balmes and Miño Streets. It consists of a ground floor, six floors, an attic and an upper attic set back from the plan of the façade. There is a great contrast between the two corners of the house; the one on Balmes Street has a large, rounded shape reminiscent of a ship, while the one on Miño Street is finished off with an edge, which makes the chamfer between Balmes Street and Ronda del General Mitre take on great prominence and become the main view of the building. On the ground floor, the openings follow a regular rhythm, and the facing is covered with dark grey stone, except for the lower part of the windows of the Ronda General Mitre, where the stone is light in colour. The transition from the ground floor to the first floor is marked by a brickwork balcony that runs along the three façades. The wall of the six upper floors forms a grid marked by the horizontal axes of the openings and the vertical ones formed by the changes in wall hangings, between exposed work and concrete. In the corners, the wall advances with respect to the plane of the façade and these advances are finished with a rounded balcony, which creates a game of full and empty spaces that gives great plasticity to the façades. The openings are rectangular and stand out in the round chamfer where there are three windows, per floor, separated by a thin smooth column that give the impression of being a large sash window. The attic takes up less space than the lower floors which means that there are garden terraces. The wall on this level is all concrete, breaking the vertical axes of brick, and opening rectangular windows and two portholes in the façade of the Ronda General Mitre. At the corner with Balmes Street, the façade recedes a few metres and the wall also has a rounded shape but with a sharper angle. This whole level is crowned by a plain molding and the closing wall of the roof. The attic is not visible from the street. Building commissioned by Lluís Jara Urbano, who was chief engineer of the Barcelona City Council. During the 1940s he was responsible for planning the route of the subway, and in the 1950s for the urban sewer system.
  2. Joaquim Masana House

    Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Joaquim Masana House

    Large building located on the corner between Trafalgar Street, Ronda Sant Pere and Urquinaona Square. It consists of a ground floor, a mezzanine, seven floors, an attic and an upper attic with a flat roof. On the ground floor there are many openings that correspond to commercial premises, except for one in Trafalgar Street which is the access portal to the building. On the mezzanine, doors open to balconies without overhangs, following a regular rhythm. On the first floor, on each of the three façades, there is a large tribune where windows open following the same axes as those on the mezzanine. In the following five floors, in the two longest façades, the wall is divided into three vertical spaces and in the central one the wall moves forward creating a large tribune. In the narrowest façade, that of Urquinaona Square, the façade is also divided into three but, in this case, it is the two lateral ones that move forward, creating triangular tribunes. On all three façades there are balconies built on the second, third and fourth floors. In the seventh level the wall is smooth and uses the upper part of the tribunes as balconies. The attic wall combines sections on the same plane as the rest of the façade with other setbacks where terraces open up. The attic is set back and is not visible from the street. The facing of the ground floor is covered with stone while the rest of the façade is plastered and painted cream. In the stands, the plastering draws horizontal lines that help emphasise the plasticity that these volumes give to the building. The railings of the balconies are tubular. This building was commissioned by promoter Joaquim Masana. Being located on one of the main commercial arteries, the architect prioritised the commercial premises on the ground floor and left the entrance for neighbours on the Trafalgar Street façade.
  3. Municipal Sports Stadium

    Lorenzo García-Barbón Fernández de Henestrosa, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Municipal Sports Stadium

    Barcelona’s Municipal Sport Stadium is located in the lowest part of the Montjuïc mountain, on a site that had been occupied by one of the 1929 International Exposition’s palaces. It was opened in 1955 to host the II Mediterranean Games and has capacity for any type of indoor sport. It was the only sports centre in Barcelona until FC Barcelona opened the Palau Blaugrana in 1971. The building basically consists of a 65-metre span roof that covers the stands and the sports court. The roof is a vault that is made up of nine reinforced concrete arches with three joints, they are built in situ and have a height of 24 metres from their start at the level of the corridor that separates the two rings of stands. These arches are left visible on the outside and are highlighted by covering the other elements with stone cladding. Inside, only the nerves have been left visible, covering the ceilings with a wooden lath that provides a good finish and serves as an acoustic absorber. The accesses to the building are produced through the flat façades, below two rectangular frames with giant vertical concrete slats that filter the lighting.
  4. Expansion and Refurbishment of the R.C.D. Espanyol's Sarrià Stadium

    Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Expansion and Refurbishment of the R.C.D. Espanyol's Sarrià Stadium

    The Sarrià Road Sports Field, owned by the Real Club Deportivo Espanyol of Barcelona, with a legal capacity of around 15,000 spectators, was insufficient to comfortably contain the large number of people who wanted to witness the football competitions that were held there. Therefore, for a long time, the expansion of the grandstand stands had become essential. In the alignments of the sector approved by the City Council on November 30, 1953, the possibility of permanence and expansion of Sarrià Road Sports Field was foreseen so that a legal capacity of around 35,000 spectators would be possible, leaving the venue of the Sports Field surrounded in almost all its perimeter by streets. At the request of the Board, a general preliminary project was drawn up that would allow the development of the works in various successive phases and in accordance with the economic possibilities of the club. The first phase corresponds to the expansion of the main grandstand, which is the object of the current project. DESCRIPTION - The works essentially consist of adding a cantilevered upper grandstand over the existing one, removing the current metallic structure canopy and extending the depth of the stands by 12 metres. The transversal profiles have been carefully studied to obtain perfect visibility for all spectators, both in the numbered seats and in the standing seats. The stands are divided into a high stand, a low stand and the general stands. The lower tribune comprises the lower section of 6 rows of uncovered numbered seats, while the upper section with 12 rows of covered seats is called the tribune, in which the presidential tribune and the authorities' market are located, flanked by its front and sides by 21 boxes that also extend behind the seats in the main tribune, forming boxes with 6 and 8 seats. For the access of these towns, the following vomitorium and stairs have been planned: 6 2-metre vomitorium and 2 3-metre staircases, 18 metres in total. The lower and main stands are separated by a 1.20-metre-wide corridor, into which the vomitorium open, and in a transversal direction by 1-metre-wide stairs, separated at a maximum distance of 12 m. The terraces of the stands are 80 cm wide, of which 40 are for numbered seats and the rest for passage. The width of the seats will be 0.50 m per viewer. The high tribune also includes two different sections: the upper tribune and the stands, which in turn are subdivided into lower and upper. The upper grandstand will consist of 6 rows of uncovered numbered seats and forms a cantilever over the main grandstand, 9.50 metres. The stands are made up of two sections of 8 and 14 rows of unnumbered standing seats. For the service of these localities, the following vomitorium and stairs are projected: upper tribune, 8 2 m. stands, 10 vomitorium of 2 m. In the upper tribune there is a distribution corridor 1 m wide, and in the stands another central aisle of 1m after the 8th row and another top 2 m after the second flight of stands. The seating locations are calculated to be 0.60x0.50m wide and leaving stairs of 1 m, with a maximum separation of 11 m. STRUCTURE. - The structure of the new grandstand is projected in reinforced concrete, forming porticos with two sections and a 9.50 m cantilever, attaching the new structure to the existing porticos of the current one, leaving an expansion joint between them, so that they are totally independent. The separation between porticos is 7 m of the line of the façade structure and radially converging according to the curvature of the current grandstand. The porticoes are locked by transversal girders and by the ceiling slabs of the floors and mezzanines described. The structure is projected by slabs of reticulated reinforced concrete, the stands being formed by ribs of reinforced concrete and slabs of the same material that complete the bracing of the porticos. The entire structure has been meticulously calculated for overloads of 500 kg per square metre. To avoid the cracks produced by the hardening retractions, two expansion joints have been planned in a transverse direction, coinciding with those currently existing in the current lower stand.
  5. Camp Nou

    Lorenzo García-Barbón Fernández de Henestrosa, Francesc Mitjans Miró, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Camp Nou

    The project responds to the need to accommodate a growing number of spectators for a football club that is constantly growing and with a greater social projection. The design criteria were based on a critical analysis of the world's major football stadiums. The playing field is below street level, so the ascent to the highest ranks is not so exaggerated. The stands follow a course of four lowered curves in order to guarantee the maximum proximity of the spectators to the field of play. In section, the stadium is organised in three overlapping tiers, to make the most of the vertical occupancy. The first tier rests directly on the ground. The second tier houses the grandstand seats and the most favoured seats, which are the only covered ones. The third tier houses the general seats and grows in height on the side opposite the grandstand. The evacuation is organised by the combination of numerous vertical circulation cores connected by uninterrupted walkways. The Camp Nou applies rationality criteria to the program of a high-capacity stadium, where the spectators are the real protagonists.
  6. Philips Factory

    Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Philips Factory

    The pavilions are organised along an internal circulation axis with green areas for workers to rest, as if the complex had been conceived based on theories derived from hygienist models and garden cities. Currently, the environment has undergone serious transformations due to the expansion of the factory. For financial and flexibility reasons, a building has been assigned to each function and the floors have been left free, defining only the position of the services, the stairs and the freight elevator. An independent machine room has also been built to supply power to the other pavilions. The image of the complex is determined by the structure, which can be closed from the inside or from the outside and allows very large openings to be made where needed. The project plays with these possibilities and combines different solutions depending on the material used. In general, the exposed brickwork alternates with white-painted stucco and glass. As the ventilation is basically artificial, 1.20m high windows have been placed in the warehouses and they have been protected with slats.
  7. Luminor Building

    Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    The council demolished an old convent in 1943 to build the current Castella Square. The baroque church was one of the elements that was preserved, as well as some of the cloister columns which were used to build an access porch. On each side of this church a building had to be placed with the vocation of forming an urban space with a traditional language and the Luminor building had to culminate this process. Soteras presented a proposal to the city council with traditional façades, which were approved. However, he ended up building a very different building under a rationalist criteria. It is a very similar case to that of the Novocomum building in Terragni from 1929. The Luminor building has an L-shaped plan that closes off the square, maintains the horizontal cornice at the height of the other buildings and gradually staggers the height of the ground floors to adapt to the slope of the city. As singular elements, there are some forward windows that serve as a showcase and a reinforced concrete canopy that finishes off the front wall of the building. The Coderch extension is respectful of the entire formal and constructive structure of the project. The differences are very small, almost imperceptible.
  8. Montbau Estate: Second Unit

    Manuel Baldrich Tibau, Antoni Bonet Castellana, Pedro López Iñigo, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Montbau Estate: Second Unit

    When the decision to build the second sector was made in 1961, the Board of Trustees commissioned the architects Manuel Baldrich, Antoni Bonet, Pedro López Iñigo and Josep Soteras to drat the corresponding architectural project. What were the reasons for choosing this heterogeneous team, made up of two municipal architects, a provincial architect and an independent architect, who had just arrived from Argentina with an obvious professional prestige? This team, despite the presence of municipal architects, one of them co-author of the first Plan, decided that it could not be limited to design the buildings, but it was also necessary to completely redo the urban structure of that sector. A new Plan was therefore drawn up, which was approved on July 2, 1962. With this new Plan it seems that exactly the double number of dwellings that had been initially planned in that sector were built.
  9. Servei Estació

    Francesc Cavaller i Soteras, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Servei Estació

    The Servei Estació was the first modern-style Catalan gas station built at the end of the 1930s. Its founder, José Manzanares, began to combine the refueling service with the importation of petroleum related products, evolving towards plastic and primary transformation materials, until it became a multi-product store. The evolution of the business led to the need to build the current building, with a much broader commercial program that has led it to become the El Corte Inglés (the biggest Spanish shopping centre) of hardware stores. The Soteras i Cavaller project is an open plan building. The only fixed elements are the vertical communications core and the escalators, which were the first ones in Barcelona. The building is separated from one of the partitions due to the need to respect the rear façade of an existing building, which allows it to gain lighting and finish the building in the form of a front wall. The elevations combine large windows with vertical grey granite cladding. The metal pillars appear marked on the façade and end up finishing off the building with a metal canopy.
  10. Factoria Cobega S.A.

    Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Factoria Cobega S.A.

    The building was built on a plot of land on Guipúzcoa Street which, at that time, was the entrance to Barcelona from the Maresme and had a great future as a commercial avenue. The functional approach was based on the decision to show the manufacturing process to passers-by as a great showcase, with the aim of manifesting the powerful image of the industry and presenting it as one of the symbols of the new society. The building is L-shaped with an office wing on the side and a manufacturing wing facing the street, where the process is carried out by gravity in three phases. The sugar and raw material warehouse is located on the upper floor, which descends to the intermediate floor where carbonated drinks are mixed and manufactured. On the ground floor, they are bottled and closed. Through the large windows on the ground floor, the process of bottling carbonated drinks could be seen from the street, although today this is no longer the case since bottling has been moved to the basement. On the first floor, technicians can still observe the manufacturing process through the large glass partitions that subdivide the interior space. The building is planned based on constructive rationality criteria, with an important work in the elaboration of the details.
  11. Comercial Hispano-Olivetti

    Ludovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti, Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Comercial Hispano-Olivetti

    The building faces the challenge of satisfying an office program on a plot of land located in a 19th century urban fabric, consolidated shortly after the demolition of the walls. The façade that faces the Ronda de la Universitat, which faces north, has a glazed wall mounted on metal enclosures, which unusually interprets the municipal ordinances applicable to the blown bodies, through a successive step towards the central part. The rear façade, facing south, incorporates a parasol to attenuate the thermal effect of the sun's rays. The structure is optimised by means of a double central pull of pillars that allows to keep clear a good part of the surfaces of the plant. A mesh of 0.90 x 0.90 metres allows a flexible distribution of the program on each floor by means of removable partitions. The pillars on the ground floor, double in height and intended for the exhibition, adopt a more careful section, as they are visible.
  12. FAD Award

    Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Interior Design
    Comercial Hispano-Olivetti

  13. Block Q of Montbau Estate

    Manuel Baldrich Tibau, Antoni Bonet Castellana, Pedro López Iñigo, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Block Q of Montbau Estate

    356.The design of the Q block, together with the P and R, made it possible to double the density of the building in the second stage of Montbau’s construction, separated from the first by the Torrent Central (Pomaret). Organisationally, it is similar to the L’s short arm of block P, with a square plant and 17 m laterally. In the same way, the staircase is in the middle and gives access to 4 houses per landing. But having 14 floors in height instead of just 4, requires the installation of elevators. Two of them are placed per block, serving the even and odd plants respectively. The other differentiating factor is the 45º turn with respect to the arrangement of the other buildings, in order to achieve a good orientation and to avoid the frontality between the towers, optimising the views and the sunlight that all the houses receive. It is the only building for which the ground was leveled, so that all 4 façades are of the same height. The structure of this building is mixed with concrete and masonry. At the time, there was still a tendency to build taller buildings with the load-bearing wall system. In this case, the reinforced concrete is introduced into the exterior walls and the brick is retained for the interior structure.
  14. Santa Tecla Parish Church

    Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Santa Tecla Parish Church

    The Santa Tecla Parish Church is an isolated building with a rectangular plan that offers the appearance of a huge industrial warehouse without intermediate pillars. It has a capacity for 800 seated people and is completely open plan. The reinforced concrete structure and the exposed brick walls present a general aspect that could be considered brutalist, but the most outstanding elements —the bell tower and the roof— are very light and innovative. The bell tower is a singular element of a sculptural nature that is made up of two 45-metre-high reinforced concrete masts that support a very slender and light cross, a set of six bells and a chiming clock. The roof is a ruled surface formed by a sequence of hyperbolic paraboloids that allow easy drainage. This surface is generated from the reciprocating movement of lattice metal girders that lean to one side and the other. The nave of the church is illuminated by large concrete windows with coloured glass and abstract lines. The front wall that closes the bottom of the presbytery is formed by a recessed wall that just closed the enclosure, without ornaments.
  15. Block P of Montbau Estate

    Manuel Baldrich Tibau, Antoni Bonet Castellana, Pedro López Iñigo, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    Block P of Montbau Estate

    In the second stage of planning the Montbau housing estate, there is an increase in building density. It will be the way some buildings are grouped together and the increase in height of others that will make it possible to achieve this. The resulting public space has a more domestic scale, generating small squares around the building. The P block is one of the types developed for this purpose. A succession of L-shaped blocks, staggered, generates a unique framework, around which 3 separate groups are projected, formed by 3 towers each and which close the whole. The homes on the long side of the L have a ventilated and illuminated staircase on the facade and access from the street to the second-floor level, which requires a different typology to the first floor. Here the houses have only one façade, facing the square. On the second, third and fourth floors there are two homes per landing, with a front and rear façade. On the short side of the L, the staircase is in the middle of the floor and gives access to four apartments per landing. In the block, all parts, except for the toilets, are exterior. And both in the rooms and in the main bedrooms, there is a setback in the façade plan that gives an outdoor space, some terraces, in front of them and generates a very characteristic compositional element that is different from the rest of the façades that do not face the square. The constructive system of load-bearing brick walls allows these large openings, given that they are perpendicular to the south and north façades. The façades combine the work seen with glazed ceramic pieces from La Bisbal in blueish and greenish colours.
  16. First Extension of Camp Nou

    Antonio Bergnes de las Casas i Soteras, Francesc Cavaller i Soteras, Juan Pablo Mitjans i Perelló, Francesc Mitjans Miró, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri

    First Extension of Camp Nou

    The Stadium was inaugurated in September 1957, the first phase being built with just the first two stands and a symmetrical crown. The profile of the Stadium was characterised by the large roof canopy, with a new design adapted by the architects to the conventional techniques of the time. It was not until 1982, already under the presidency of the ineffable Josep Lluís Nuñez, when the original asymmetry of the Stadium was completed with the third tier for the celebration of the World Championship for National Teams. The project for this second phase was carried out by Mitjans and Soteras, together with Juan Pablo Mitjans, son of the first, and Francisco Cavaller, nephew of the latter. The final construction was characterised by the assembly of an envelope of slats around the entire perimeter of the building, and by the inclusion of the body of ramps on the east façade, originally independent, within the volume of the third tier. These ramps, hanging taut from the rear façade, increase the presumed drama of the complex, even at the cost of eliminating the value of the original project as a mediating element. In 1994, due to UEFA regulations, the first tier was adapted, moving the spectators from standing to sitting. This change involved lowering the level of the playing field by almost 3 metres, with the inevitable consequences on the isoptics of the Stadium. The stoic spectacular nature of the original vision of the Stadium and its access to the grandstand on a ramp from the curved geometry car park located in Arístides Mayol, was gradually disfigured from 1957 with the appearance of a crude constellation of buildings. Among them, the beautiful dome of the Palau Blaugrana still shines with its own light, unfortunately currently condemned to demolition, carried out by Soteras together with Cavaller and the engineer Florencio del Pozo. Its less fortunate exterior volumetry clumsily intermingles between a group of banal auxiliary buildings. The set, far from the mythical category of the stadium, ruins the symbolic access to the building. Also, the additions made to the west façade, including the current museum headquarters, with similar authorship, do not help to not deny the hypothesis of the existence of a genetic component in the quality of an architect. Architectural knowledge, and this is even more visible when intervening in a pre-existing building, is probably of doubtful hereditary character. It is acquired with effort, dedication, perseverance, and even though it may not be fashionable today, with high doses of humility and willingness to serve society. More than fifty years later, the Camp Nou maintains its stoic dignity and functionality as a stadium. Another question is whether it is the right set for broadcasting a football match, when the viewer becomes part of the show. Or when the ancient temple of sport is transformed, biblically, into a market. Well, into a mall.

Archive

  • Perspectiva de l'exterior del Polígon Montbau: Unitat Nord-Est.

    Drawing

    Perspectiva de l'exterior del Polígon Montbau: Unitat Nord-Est.

    Arxiu Històric del COAC

  • Perspectiva exterior del Camp Nou

    Drawing

    Perspectiva exterior del Camp Nou

    Fons Quaderns d'Arquitectura i Urbanisme / Arxiu Històric del COAC

Bibliography (37)

Routes & Notes (6)

Bústia suggeriments

Ajuda’ns a millorar el web i el seu contingut. Proposa’ns obres, aporta o esmena informació sobre obres, autors i fotògrafs, o comenta’ns el què penses. Participa!