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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
Two-story house with windows and balconies at the top and doors and windows at the bottom. The roof is flat and has a railing of curvilinear lines, like battlements, with vegetal decoration in the centre, forming ascending curvilinear groups; from the foot of this finish comes a small protective roof that at the same time creates a symmetrical pattern with tiles. The house has modernist elements, such as ceramic borders, staggered corbels that support the overhang of the balconies and sgraffito decoration.
Sgrafitto
Along the two façades, reproductions of the obverse and reverse of the medals obtained in France and Spain, for the good presentation and quality of the fruits exported by Bonaventura Raspall, are represented.
To the left of the façade of Passeig Nadal, a large medal with the inscription "PARIS 1907" is depicted. Then there are two circles and the legends "Culinary Competition", "Diploma of Honour" and "Paris 1907": in the circle on the right, you can see the inscription of the prize and, in the one on the left, a woman and a girl who form the centre of the landscape made up of a house and trees. Next, there is the sgraffito for the "Food and Hygiene Competition" award, which is also composed of two circles: the one on the left presents a woman with a fruit basket helped by a child, and the one on the right inscription of the award. To the right of the façade, the Grand Prize medal of the Barcelona International Exhibition of 1912 is represented, marked with laurel leaves.
The medal of the Barcelona International Exhibition of 1912 is represented on the façade of Vidal i Ribas Street. In addition, there is the inscription "YEAR 1916", in reference to the year the house was built, and a monogram with the initials BR, corresponding to the owners of the house: Bonaventura Raspall.
This house, built in 1916, was originally Bonaventura Raspall's family’s home as well as a warehouse for the firm he ran, called "La Pilarica"; the fruit and vegetables that were then imported to France were put in their respective boxes here.
It later became known by the name of Cauhé Raspall, since Dr. Antoni Cauhé Huguet, (1898-1975), general practitioner and coroner of the city, set up his practice and residence there when he married the heiress of the house: Joana Raspall Juanola (1913-2013) poetess and writer who was awarded a Sant Feliu de Llobregat gold medal and a Sant Jordi Cross.
Corner house of large dimensions with three façades, cubic volume and with a Catalan roof. It is structured in height on the ground floor and first floor. The ground floor has rectangular doors and windows crowned by glazed ceramic tiles in blue and ochre shades and geometric motifs, in tune with the border of the same material and motifs that run horizontally along this half-height body of the building and which is only visible interrupted in its passage by doors and windows. These elements, which give colour the building from a distinctly modernist aesthetic, were produced at the Pujol i Bausis factory in Esplugues de Llobregat and designed by the modernist architect Antoni M. Gallissà. On the main façade there are two doors, one is the main access to the building and the other used to give access to the warehouse. The presence of a plinth covered with irregularly shaped stone slabs stands out.
On the top floor of the Passeig Nadal façade, there are two balconies of different dimensions, without an axis of symmetry. They have a rectangular platform with the front decorated with glazed ceramics. They are closed with very light wrought iron railing and are supported on staggered corbels placed asymmetrically to suit the position of the lower floor openings. These balconies welcome one and two doors respectively, all of them finished with identical decoration to those on the ground floor.
The body of the wall corresponding to the second floor shows large and abundant sgraffito motifs of a neoclassical style that refer to the awards and recognitions received by the old establishment dedicated to the importation and exportation trade of fruit and vegetables. Specifically, we find large medallions that show the citizens of the municipality the importance that the Bonaventura Raspall family had due to their activity.
On the undulating crest of the upper limit of the building, on some red brick eaves, we find a second type of sgraffito that reproduces garlands and flowers. Below the eaves we find again a glazed ceramic border also in blue and ochre tones and geometric motifs.
Bonaventura Raspall entrusted the building project of his house to the architect Gabriel Borrell, and the execution of the work was carried out by the builder Molins.
Borrell's project drew the most general features of the building, the composition by ground floor and floor, the construction of a roof in the Catalan style and the existence of openings on the three façades. But the large number of ornaments that appeared in the finished work responded to the will of the contractor and the custom of the executor to enrich the architect's project.
It is part of the Sant Feliu Modernist Route.