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About
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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
About us
Project by: 
Created by: 
Directors:
2019-2024 Aureli Mora i Omar OrnaqueDocumental Commission:
2019-2024 Ramon Faura Carolina B. Garcia Eduard Callís Francesc Rafat Pau Albert Antoni López Daufí Joan Falgueras Mercè Bosch Jaume Farreny Anton Pàmies Juan Manuel Zaguirre Josep Ferrando Fernando Marzá Moisés Puente Aureli Mora Omar OrnaqueCollaborators:
2019-2024 Lluis Andreu Sergi Ballester Maria Jesús Quintero Lucía M. Villodres Montse ViuExternal Collaborators:
2019-2024 Helena Cepeda Inès MartinelWith the support of:
Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de CulturaCollaborating Entities:
ArquinFADFundació Mies van der Rohe
Fundación DOCOMOMO Ibérico
Basílica de la Sagrada Família
Museu del Disseny de Barcelona
Fomento
AMB
EINA Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona
IEFC
Fundació Domènench Montaner.
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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.
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Memory
An old red Massey Ferguson like Grandpa Joan's still works the land. In this fast-paced world, there are still ancient landscapes where the fumes of the neighbouring houses are important and accompany you in winter; corners of happiness where orchards outside the walls and on the banks of the river are nicely kept. This is the story of a family refuge where one can enjoy nature and simple things; of a time machine that wants to keep this precious landscape forever unchanged.
In this project, a meadow was constructed as an adaptation to the topography of the terrain. Elements, such as the garage, the water basin, the walkway or the sloping wall in the background that follows and cuts the steep slope, form a flat surface. And on its top, there rests an autonomous rectangular volume that houses the minimum functions of a dwelling in a single open-plan space; to the south, there is a living, dining and resting room; and within the thick wall that isolates us from the north, there are toilets and the entrance.
This architectural object transforms its relationship with the environment as the seasons change in the riverbank vegetation filter that accompanies it, but also from the varying expression of its gaze, which enjoys the landscape protected from the sun when it raises its eyelids. And, fearful of the brevity of this sober beauty, the refuge rests unstable on a hillside ledge like an owl ready to take flight with the landscape caught on its retina.
Casa Retina can be interpreted in various ways depending on the reference system adopted. We can understand it as an autonomous element with an intimate and controlled relationship with the immediate environment, either through its changing gaze, or through its neutral and naked interior spaces, directed to the landscape and prepared to receive all the complexity of the interior life.
However, this house can also be understood as another piece of the human puzzle that hosts it, as another room in this large house that forms the outside walls of the medieval town. These areas of humanized nature represent the transitional strip between the old town and the forest. A space that is often more domestic than urban environments themselves, which a priori are made and thought of by a person, but which at the same time are as hostile as wild nature or even more hostile than it can be.
This environment connects us with nature in a progressive way: houses scattered further and further away from each other, vegetable gardens and orchards that give off the affection of their owners and give us life, the neighboring farm where cows graze and ruminate... The river and the makeshift passage... The nearby landscape in which the house gets the refuge it has been looking for and which converts it into a space of intimacy and comfort.
With the same respect of the man that has transformed the nature of this place, the first step of the project is the domestication of the land creating an allotment. From here on, Retina House is a room above a meadow that rests, contemplates, dialogues, or closes its eyes and dreams.
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Retina House
An old red Massey Ferguson like Grandpa Joan's still works the land. In this fast-paced world, there are still ancient landscapes where the fumes of the neighbouring houses are important and accompany you in winter; corners of happiness where orchards outside the walls and on the banks of the river are nicely kept. This is the story of a family refuge where one can enjoy nature and simple things; of a time machine that wants to keep this precious landscape forever unchanged. In this project, a meadow was constructed as an adaptation to the topography of the terrain. Elements, such as the garage, the water basin, the walkway or the sloping wall in the background that follows and cuts the steep slope, form a flat surface. And on its top, there rests an autonomous rectangular volume that houses the minimum functions of a dwelling in a single open-plan space; to the south, there is a living, dining and resting room; and within the thick wall that isolates us from the north, there are toilets and the entrance. This architectural object transforms its relationship with the environment as the seasons change in the riverbank vegetation filter that accompanies it, but also from the varying expression of its gaze, which enjoys the landscape protected from the sun when it raises its eyelids. And, fearful of the brevity of this sober beauty, the refuge rests unstable on a hillside ledge like an owl ready to take flight with the landscape caught on its retina. Casa Retina can be interpreted in various ways depending on the reference system adopted. We can understand it as an autonomous element with an intimate and controlled relationship with the immediate environment, either through its changing gaze, or through its neutral and naked interior spaces, directed to the landscape and prepared to receive all the complexity of the interior life. However, this house can also be understood as another piece of the human puzzle that hosts it, as another room in this large house that forms the outside walls of the medieval town. These areas of humanized nature represent the transitional strip between the old town and the forest. A space that is often more domestic than urban environments themselves, which a priori are made and thought of by a person, but which at the same time are as hostile as wild nature or even more hostile than it can be. This environment connects us with nature in a progressive way: houses scattered further and further away from each other, vegetable gardens and orchards that give off the affection of their owners and give us life, the neighboring farm where cows graze and ruminate... The river and the makeshift passage... The nearby landscape in which the house gets the refuge it has been looking for and which converts it into a space of intimacy and comfort. With the same respect of the man that has transformed the nature of this place, the first step of the project is the domestication of the land creating an allotment. From here on, Retina House is a room above a meadow that rests, contemplates, dialogues, or closes its eyes and dreams. -
Premis d’Arquitectura de les Comarques de Girona
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Obra Nova / RehabilitacióRetina HousePremi AJAC (Associació de Joves Arquitectes de Catalunya)
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Obra Nova / RehabilitacióRetina House