How to get there
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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
Enric Sagnier's links with the Tibidabo mountain were not limited to the construction of the temple that crowns the summit, but also led him to take part in the urban development operation promoted by the pharmaceutical industrialist Salvador Andreu on the slope overlooking the city. This prominent man from Barcelona headed the Sociedad Anónima El Tibidabo, which acquired the rural estate known as Frare Blanc, opened up a series of streets around Avinguda del Tibidabo and proceeded to develop it with high-class villas. Sagnier worked actively on this garden city, as did other modernist architects such as Puig i Cadafalch, Adolf Ruiz and Joan Rubió i Bellver.
This complex, consisting of two similar villas situated on a large plot and attributed to Sagnier, consists of two buildings reminiscent of classicism, in a line that the architect developed above all from the second decade of the 20th century onwards, although we know that these were already finished in 1906 because the owners stated this in two requests presented to the Town Hall offices. The families, who were related to each other, belonged to the highest strata of Barcelona society at the time: the Serts were powerful textile industrialists (the famous painter Josep M. Sert came from their ranks), while Eusebi López Díaz-Quijano was the nephew of the Marquis of Comillas.
The buildings were inspired by French architecture, in this case in a version close to the classicism of the lights. The practically standardised formal elements of the façades are articulated to give rise to volumes which, read in terms of urban image, aspire to transmit values of nobility and tradition, while the interiors are more adapted to domestic life and social relations.