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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
Detached house composed of basement, ground floor, main floor and two side turrets with a pavilion roof. Gable roof. Twin windows and semi-circular arch doors on the ground floor and pointed doors on the upper floor. Decoration of blind arches. Bastion. Access with side steps. Interesting railing.
Country house and set of annexed buildings which probably originates from the medieval period and was later renovated at the beginning of the 20th century in the Noucentista style.
The Bergadanes house is made up of a main building and four annex buildings, located at the back of the plot, all enclosed by a fence, a section of which protects the front yard of the house, which is topped with stepped bricks. This stands out in particular and it follows the style of the façade of the main building.
The country house is located southeast of the village of Pla del Penedès, approximately 1.4 kilometres away, close to the boundary of the municipal area (260 m) of Subirats, which crosses the Serral, a slight elevation located at the same distance from the house. The country house is close to that of Can Fontanals, which is 400 m away, located to the north-west, and to the north it is bordered by the road that leads there, coming from the east, from the neighbourhood of Corral del Mestre (TM de Subirats ). To the south, the house faces Torrent Fontanals, which is the name of this section of Torrent de Sabanell.
Can Bergadanes stands out especially for its front façade, in a distinctly Noucentista style. The building is a country house with origins from the middle of the 13th century (LLORAC, 2015: 50). This original building, quite probably refurbished on several occasions, would correspond to the western volume of the main building. It has a rectangular plan, of about 200m2, consisting of ground floor, first floor and basement. The ridge is central, longitudinal to the building. On the sides it has several windows, all of them common, without any trace of antiquity.
On the southeast façade of this building, a new body about 5m wide was added around the 1910s, which corresponds to the current façade and which has the significant features of the Noucentista style. It is a rectangular volume, with a ground floor and a main floor, with two towers at each end (northeast and southwest), in which there is another floor. The whole ensemble stands out for the geometric shapes and ornaments of the windows, as well as for the crowning of the towers with bricks, which all refer to a Noucentisme still with links to architectural modernism.
The divergence between the windows on the ground floor of the building, which are all semi-circular arches with a perimeter ornamental vase, from those on the ground floor and the upper part of the towers, all of them pointed in the upper part, with the same decorative vase, made entirely of bricks, stands out.
On the ground floor, the two windows above the main entrance face a balcony protected by an iron railing that is supported on pilasters decorated with ceramic pieces. Between the two windows, there is a sundial above, with a ceramic panel. The two windows on the same floor where the towers are located are, on the other hand, twinned and taller and narrower. In the north tower, on the top floor, the same windows are triple and the top ends with a perimeter border that reproduces in multiple ways the same shape of these pointed windows. Above it there is an eave of bricks placed diagonally, in the manner of dentillons, which supports the hip roof, crowned by a ceramic cup. On the other hand, the south tower, which is lower, has a single window, in the same style, smaller than the rest, and the crowning is identical except for the roof, which is gabled. On the lateral fronts of this volume, this same composition follows, with a moulded slab balcony in the windows of the first floor.
On the other hand, on the south side of the original building there is a semi-circular arch portal, which could correspond to the first access. To the west of this building there is a large annex building for agricultural use and between the two what appears to be an old coach house built probably at the same time as the nineteenth-century façade, because it follows the same style, with an access from a basket-handle arch flanked by two decorative ceramic motifs reminiscent of a coat of arms. The main entrance to the property has a portal with brick pillars crowned by pinnacles also covered in ceramics.
Salvador Llorac writes that there are documentary references to the place since June 16, 1255, when the Castilian Guillem de Lavit established the Bergadanes house in Barceló de Cases. In 1353, Jaume Joan Bergadanes is mentioned and, in 1360, Berenguer Joan Bergadanes. In 1387 it is mentioned in the Pere Esbert de Bergadanes Plan (LLORAC 2015:39-40).
Later, in 1857, Nicanor de Franco appears as the owner, while in the parish register of 1864 it was the widow Torrents. Llorac says that there was a famous robbery in 1844 (LLORAC, 2015:40).
Llorac thinks that the toponym of the building comes from a pluralisation of "bergades", which means a group of people who walk or work together (LLORAC, 2015: 50).
In the documents, 1910 appears as the date of construction, which could correspond to the refurbishment of the beginning of the 20th century.