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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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: 
Created by: 
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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Works (10)
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Chronology (18)
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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 ParkFAD 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.Figueres Social Housing Units
Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT), Benedetta Tagliabue
La parcel.la que l’Incasol ens havia donat tenia una gran complicació. Era un triangle molt estret i irregular que havia de tancar una plaça circular interior i al mateix temps conectar un nou espai verd i un carrer. Hem decidit per un esquema sutil, casi com una serp, que es podia adaptar bé a la dificultat geomètrica de la parcel.la. Les plantes baixes són per la majoria porxades i permeten conectar el carrer, els espais verds i la plaça circular. L’edifici actua aixi com a connecció d’espais. Els pisos, per lloguers a gent Jove són tots de 40m2. S’ha decidit per una unitat d’ habitatge de 5m de profunditat (com una casa antiga) i 8 d’ample, per permetre una façana única al carrer i una gran finestra que unifica l’espai. Les finestres son bow windows que fan que tot l’habitatge sigui com un únic espai. M’agradaria veure aquestes finestres durant la utilització dels pisos amb la vida del interior entrant al carrer.EU Mies Award
NominatedGas Natural HeadquartersFAD Award
Finalist. Category: ArchitectureEnric Miralles LibraryEU Mies Award
NominatedCentre Kàlida Sant PauBibliography (110)
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