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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
Coderch solves the gentle slope of the land by means of a difference in level on which the house straddles. Upstairs there is the entrance and parking, a group of two bedrooms and the master bedroom with its study. Downstairs there are two more bedrooms, the day rooms and the wing where the kitchen and service rooms are located. The bedrooms located to the north follow the recess arrangement and the staggered section. Each different use of the house has its own façade, clearly separated from the others by means of the extension of the walls. Facing northeast, the house seeks light through a transversal axis that goes from the parking lot to the living room, and which has as its main element an interior patio that allows the entrance of light. This patio becomes a central nucleus that organises all circulations, so that the life of the house revolves around its luminosity.
Behind the Serra de Collserola, Casa Luque is built on a plot that orients and descends on a gentle slope towards the northeast, in the direction of a golf course. The scheme is the same as that of Casa Catasús, returning to the T-shape, but with a much wider programme. Regarding the arrangement of the three functional wings, in this case the one arranged transversely is the service, so that the living room and the bedrooms are oriented in the same way, separating the rooms in the case of the bedrooms. The relationship area is placed as a pavilion attached to the rest of the house, highlighting the virtue of enjoying the landscape in a privileged way.
The entrance is made through the car park, facing a hall that finds a courtyard to its left that organises all the spaces, but that is deviated from the axis of circulation and nullifies the symmetry.
Spatial fullness is achieved in the room: in the two perpendicular directions marked, as cardinal tools, we find the landscape in front of us; to the right, the garden with the swimming pool; on the left, the porch, and behind us and as a counterpoint, the light that enters through the large patio. The change in elevation marked by the steps that accompany the longitudinal path of the patio contributes to the spatial independence of the living room.