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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
It is a building between partitions with a rear courtyard and with façades to the square and the passage. It is a single-family house in its origins, later adapted to social uses.
The property has a rectangular plan and consists of a semi-basement, a mezzanine, two floors and an attic. The roof is partly gabled and partly flat. It consists of four corridors perpendicular to the façade separated by a load-bearing wall. The main staircase has four sections and is attached to the partition. In the hall we find two lowered arches and a central column. There is a covered back gallery that forms the front facing the courtyard.
The load-bearing walls are of common masonry and brick. The forge is made of wooden beams and tile surround. In the semi-basement there are lowered tile vaults. The roof is made of Arabic tiles with a structure of wooden beams and slats and tiles. The staircase is covered by Catalan vaults.
The main façade is symmetrical and is composed of four vertical axes that correspond to the four corners. The ground floor has four low arched portals. The first floor has two balconies running from two openings with a lintel each, crowned with drip edges. On the second floor there are four balconies of an opening crowned with a cornice. The top of the building is composed of a cornice and flat baluster railing. The rear façade is composed according to six vertical axes with lowered arched openings on the semi-basement and mezzanine floors and with galleries with lintels on the upper floors.