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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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:
2019-2025 Aureli Mora i Omar OrnaqueDocumental Commission:
2019-2025 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:
2019-2025 Lluis Andreu Sergi Ballester Maria Jesús Quintero Lucía M. Villodres Montse ViuExternal Collaborators:
2019-2025 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 (7)
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Chronology (11)
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Loom Building in Can Batlló Factory
The Universitat Industrial is an enclosure that occupies four blocks of the Eixample Cerdà, built over time by three different main architects, which recycles the Batlló Factory – eccentric with respect to the complex (current Rellotge Building, located in the middle of a square, respecting the streets) – and is organized taking as its axis Còrsega Street, aligned with Comte d'Urgell and with the Rotonda as access. The complex has a structure based on pavilions that leave courtyards in the middle, with a central access body, several classroom pavilions and a chapel at the end of the complex. Both the Rotonda and Can Batlló are designed by Rafael Guastavino, with very sober worked stone façades and virtuously designed interior structures, with flat brick vaults taken to the limit of constructive possibilities. The complex grows in the form of pavilions enlarged by Joan Rubió i Bellver, who also has a pavilion opposite París Street, located in a parallel position to the street. The ordinance keeps Comte Borrell Street inside the enclosure, although it is not passable on foot. It is a good example of additive architecture where each component makes sense for itself and maintains the harmony of the whole. The last architect to take part in the complex was Manuel Baldrich, who extended the workshops and built the swimming pools on París Street, two notable examples of post-war architecture, with a concrete structure and folded roofs that take centre stage. Rubió’s structures are also remarkable, with a succession of parabolic arches in the workshops and a crossing of the same arches in the chapel, decorated with a soft polychrome of remarkable late modernist taste. The complex is completely closed but is public and accessible from the Rotonda. Its communes can be visited. -
La Massa Theatre
The most significant element of Guastavino's work is the spherical dome that covers the stalls, made of flat brick following traditional construction procedures, although its execution has been perfected. The rehabilitation of the theatre involves the restoration of the main components of the old building, as well as its technological adaptation to its current use. The theatre, one of the main monuments in the centre of Vilassar, together with the church, the town hall and the future museum, opens up to the urban space through new accesses added to the old factory. The body that houses the café, annexed to the theatre, shares its entrance, together with the staircase leading to the upper floor. The entrance foyer forms another added body, tangent to the gallery of the stalls, which redoes the façade of the theatre facing the square. A platform suspended in the centre of the dome acts as an element which smoothes out the acoustic, as well as the stage lighting bridge and the general stalls lighting. -
Asland Factory Building
Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company, Eduard Ferrés i Puig, Rafael Guastavino Moreno, Isidoro Pedraza de la Pascua, Ewing Wallace
It was the first factory of the Asland company, founded in 1901 by the industrialist and patron of the arts Eusebi Güell. It began operating in 1903, and was the first factory in the country to produce Portland cement. It is a staggered or ‘cascade’ arrangement on the right bank of the source of the Llobregat. This layout favoured the production process, due to its proximity to the points where the raw material was exploited, and also made it possible to take advantage of the river's hydraulic energy. The factory operated on the normal principle of gravity. At the top, marl and limestone were collected from the quarries located further up, and at the base the final product was obtained. Guastavino used Catalan vaults with tie rods, with spans of 12 metres. A small narrow-gauge railway, with tracks 60 centimetres wide, connected the factory with Berga and Manresa. The factory closed in 1975.