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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
The country house is located in the lower part of the area, next to a stream where there is a small grove and a fountain.
It is a building consisting of a ground floor, a main floor and an attic, with a gable roof. The façade has a side turret with a pavilion and a gallery.
The openings have characteristic modernist style frames. There is the use of exposed brick and glazed ceramics decorated with floral motifs.
The roof has eaves on corbels.
The country house of Can Raspall dels Horts origins in the 17th century (1605). The modernist refurbishment is the work of the architect Antoni Pons i Domínguez and was carried out in 1909.
Modernist building with a rectangular plan with a ground floor, main floor, second floor and attic, and a gable Arabic tile roof. To the left, the main building has a four-storey tower attached to it, the last floor sticking out, with a pavilion roof and majolica hip roof and a gallery with three windows on each side.
As for the main façade, it presents a symmetrical arrangement of all the openings, five per level, which are decorated with tile appliqués, or are crowned with arches of various geometric shapes, as is typical of the language aesthetic of modernism, and which thus contrast with the white of the facade's surface. The entrance door to the building, with a thin arch, is in the centre of the ground floor, flanked by two windows on each side. On the main floor, the three double-winged wooden doors that give way to an elongated balcony with a wrought-iron railing stand out. The upper floor has a gallery of five windows, above which is the eaves, supported by corbels. This gives way to the roof, the front part of which is covered with majolica tiles.
The interior of the building is perfectly preserved, highlighting the melis pine wood beams on the ceiling of the ground floor, the moulded plaster decoration on the ceilings of the main floor, the hydraulic tile floors, as well as two water sinks tiled on the ground floor.
On the right side of the main building there is an annex where the old cups are kept, the space of which has now been converted into a rest area. On the façade of this annex is a modern sundial and family coat of arms. The ancient cisterns are open to the garden in front of the house, where there is a circular stone well which is 77 cm high and with an inner diameter of 1.10 m, as well as a large stone oil mill, with a diameter of 1.40 m.
About 30 metres to the north-east of the building, within the same estate, is the country house.
The origins of the manor house of Can Raspall dels Horts are medieval. In the 14th century Ramon dels Horts was one of the owners - then it passed to the Vendrell family, also mentioned in the 14th century as owners. In the 16th century, the property was acquired by the ancestors of the current owner, of the Raspall lineage, who apparently came from Can Raspall de Renardes, from the area of Lavit, as is reflected in the hearth tax of 1497. In the hearth tax of 1515 and 1553, the Raspalls are already mentioned as inhabitants of Terrassola. The building underwent major refurbishments at the beginning of the 17th century (around 1605), which continued in the following centuries, until in 1909 it was demolished in its entirety to build the current modernist building in its place, work of the architect Antoni Pons i Domínguez. Joan Respall i Roig (1859-1938), grandfather of the current owner, was the promoter of the current modernist building. He was a great reader, very fond of astronomy and with many sociological concerns, which led him to publish, in 1889, the book "El comunismo o sistema del porvenir según la ciencia y la naturaleza" printed in Barcelona, which dedicated to Emilio Castelar, President of the Government of the First Spanish Republic (1873-1874). Both the manor house of Can Raspall dels Horts and that of the farmers were one of the scenes of the TV3 series "Nissaga de Poder".