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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
After several versions, the ground plan was defined as an irregular hexagon, formed by the perimeter union of the double hexagon proposed in a previous version. The program consists of four bedrooms, a living room, the kitchen and the toilet, with independent uses. The entire program is on the first floor, which is accessed through a staircase located in the centre of the floor, and whose body is the only support for the entire building.
In the construction plan, a mixed structure was proposed, consisting of a metal skeleton, vertical planes built with a double sheet of ceramic work, and horizontal enclosures with brick vaults of ceramic plane. The use of any of these elements may seem contradictory, especially the combination of the light metal structure with the heavy enclosure of the factory. This suggests that the original intention was probably the placement of prefabricated enclosure elements, as can be inferred from the modulation of the façade. All in all, the final solution involves the combination - at least original - of traditional construction elements included in a totally innovative structural system. The body of the central staircase included six perimeter pillars (in an equidistant position with respect to the centres of the two theoretical original hexagons) on which the entire construction rested. The rest of the metal structure, built using UPN and L profiles, was arranged in the form of a double bracket, in such a way that a large part of the load was transmitted in traction from the braces arranged at the top of the pillars.