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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
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.
Building located in the village of Corró d'Avall, at the foot of the old Ribes road. The complex, despite its unitary appearance, is made up of three autonomous bodies that do not communicate with each other. The central body has a basilica plan and is flanked on both sides by two rectangular buildings located perpendicularly; these two elongated bodies are also flanked by two quadrangular constructions, one on each side, making a total of four. All these buildings form a unitary façade, 124.30 metres long, with slight entrances and exits that mark the different bodies. At the back there is a rectangular courtyard enclosed by the different buildings on three of its sides, and a wall on the fourth.
The central body corresponds to the town hall, it has a basilical structure, covered on two sides, with staggered buttresses on the sides and a sinuous profile buttress in the centre, from which the bell tower protrudes. This is covered with coloured glazed tiles, forming a geometric decoration, and crowned by an iron spire.
On both sides we find the old schools for "boys" and "girls", as indicated by the signs painted on the façades. These were designed to have only one usable floor, so the floor is 2.5m high. The classrooms were well ventilated, with cross ventilation, and the courtyards were accessed by stairs leading to porches, which still exist today. Of these porches, the pillars of visible work in a helical shape stand out as a decorative element. The structure of the porches is the original iron with small forging work in the parts of the capital. At the ends of each side were the teachers' houses. Regarding the floor plan of the complex, it is worth highlighting its modernity and the good distribution of uses; the classrooms were placed, for example, with large windows to the north and the courtyards to the south, to guarantee good lighting.
Throughout the building there are openings of various typologies, distributed symmetrically, and following a modernist language. This artistic current is also present in the interior with the use of a variety of applied arts such as glazed ceramics, polychrome stained glass, tower and stairs, wrought iron railings and sgraffitos.
This building was designed, in 1912, by the architect Albert Juan i Torner, by order of Joan Sanpera i Torras, with the intention of creating a large area intended for schools for boys and girls, housing for teachers and administrative uses. The situation outside the population centre responds to the search for a neutral point, which is convenient for the four towns that make up the municipal term. The architect wanted to use the materials and construction systems of the region to facilitate his repairs. Joan Sanpera also paid for the construction of the slaughterhouse, carried out by the same architect.
It is one of the most remarkable modernist examples in the Vallès. The Casa de la Vila was located in the central body, and on the sides, the schools and the teachers' house. Although this model of a building with a dual use function is repeated in other towns such as the Ametlla del Vallès Town Hall and schools (designed by Manuel J. Raspall and built in the same period), in the Franqueses del Vallès building, it acquires a monumentality that sets it apart from the rest.