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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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 building known as Casa Bonaventura Ferrer is a modernist building located at number 113 Passeig de Gràcia (in the Jardinets), designed by the architect Pere Falqués i Urpí and built between 1905 and 1906.
This building, originally a residential building, occupies a plot between Passeig de Gràcia (no. 113) and Riera de Sant Miquel (no. 6), where there is a much smaller building, with a single floor and ground floor and very different formal and chronological characteristics. The main house facing Passeig de Gràcia has five levels of elevation (ground floor, main floor, three floors and a roof with a rooftop that can be walked on) and a basement.
The main façade stands out for its decorative and sculptural elements. Compositionally, three vertical axes can be distinguished, the central one being the most relevant both for the type of structural elements it incorporates and for its sculptural and decorative richness. In this sense, the sculptural decoration of the entrance door to the property – located on one of the lateral axes – and especially the central window on the ground floor and the tribune on the first floor stand out. The window located on the ground floor is at the height of an intermediate level, most probably modelled on the windows in the studios of the great urban mansions of Barcelona in the 16th and 17th centuries, known to Falqués. The profusely decorated window sill is in the form of an Ionic capital with large volutes and acanthus leaves, in the centre of which is a small opening that corresponds to the ventilation of the basement level. A powerful structure with overlapping cantilevered and sculpted cantilevered corbels forms the lintel of the window and serves as the base of the balcony on the main floor. This tribune is one of the most characteristic elements of the façade, with a large window which, taking as a reference the medieval colonnade windows with a central mullion, reinterprets the model with a larger staircase and a large central column. This column incorporates iron elements in its shaft and capital, a material also used in the balcony railings and window frames. This gallery protrudes considerably from the façade's plumb line, which allows for the development of a cantilevered balcony on the first floor. From the first floor onwards, the cantilevered balconies disappear and give way to enclosed balconies.
The rear façade of this main building has unique galleries with a semi-circular structure of wood, iron and leaded glass that is truly remarkable. As already mentioned, on the façade line of Carrer Riera de Sant Miquel, the building has a ground floor and first floor, covered with a flat, walkable roof.
The main access to the Passeig de Gràcia is through a large doorway – which still preserves the original wooden door – through which one enters a first vestibule of small dimensions with steps leading to another, larger vestibule, where the staircase leading to the upper floors is located. The staircase's iron railing, which also incorporates an iron and glass light, stands out. The rest of the wall lights located in the vestibule take up the same idea. The staircase located in this foyer gives access to the upper floors (from the main floor upwards) which are currently used as luxury rental flats.
The ground floor is probably one of the most important areas of the building from a decorative point of view. The space currently known as the ‘Passeig de Gràcia Hall’ is covered with a polychrome wooden ceiling and vegetal tracery, while the space below is covered with a moulded plaster ceiling, polychrome and occasionally gilded.
But the most characteristic space of the building is undoubtedly the large central area located in the centre of the ground floor which, recovering the function of the old medieval and baroque open courtyards, acts as a distributor of the ground floor spaces and gives access to the main floor. This space, covered with a skylight structure with polychrome leaded glass windows, connects the ground floor with the first floor via a noble wooden staircase that is included within a large structure, also made of wood of great technical and decorative quality, where plant motifs surround the space, especially in the staircase railing and the first-floor gallery. This gallery surrounds the entire first floor, where there are two large rooms, the ‘Salón del mirador’ and the ‘Salón de los Vitrales’, both covered with polychrome and golden plaster ceilings in the modernist and deco style. The carpentry and wall lights, which have been preserved and are present in many areas of the estate, are particularly noteworthy.
Also on the ground floor is an area known as ‘The Conservatory’, a semi-circular space covered with an iron structure and stained glass windows that creates a very wide and bright conservatory-like room. This space is accessed through a hall characterised by the magnificent woodwork both on the doors and on the carved and polychrome wood ceilings with plant motifs that follow other models present in the building.
The rest of the upper floors are nowadays adapted as luxury flats for rent.
The basement floor, currently empty and adapted to the new uses of the building (social and cultural events), stands out for the brick pillars that support the flat brick vaults, creating a very diaphanous space that contrasts with the original uses: the old kitchens, charcoal piles and service rooms.