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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
The construction of the church of Montbau does not escape the influence of the European architecture of the time. Not only because the first idea was to propose the architect Le Corbusier for the design - his advanced age was a definitive factor in refusing the commission -, but also because of the construction system chosen by the winning team, formed by the architects Vayreda and Montguió in 1963. The different volumes that make up the program are linked by an outer canopy that unifies the whole and gives a human scale to the accesses, to discover, once inside, a much more important volume. The structure of this interior is solved with a plot of metal pillars with a roof with lowered vaults of reinforced concrete. A technological innovation of the traditional Catalan vault and which had also been the object of study and of subsequent use in some works by Le Corbusier himself, such as the Maisons Jaoul.
The Church of Sant Jeroni belongs to the Montbau neighbourhood, a project from 1957 that is part of a new stage of urban action carried out by the Municipal Housing Board, in which a proposal is made in order to create complete urban centres perfectly differentiated from the rest of the urban fabric. One of the differentiating elements with respect to previous public actions consists in the provision of social facilities, one of which would be the church of Sant Jeroni.
In 1963, after Le Corbusier rejected the commission due to his advanced age, a competition was held to build this church, which was won by the architects Vayreda and Montguió. The project consists of two separate volumes: the parish and the church. The highlight of the project is the zigzag-shaped exterior canopy that links both buildings, delimiting the green areas and ending up delimiting an exterior cloister of great architectural beauty. Constructively, it is conceived as a reinforced concrete slab supported by a series of steel uprights painted black, with a very light and slender image. The two buildings are resolved with Corbusian abstract forms.
Giráldez - López Iñigo - Subías Arquitectes, Guillermo Giráldez Dávila, Pedro López Iñigo, Xavier Subías i Fages
Manuel Baldrich Tibau, Antoni Bonet Castellana, Pedro López Iñigo, Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri
Pau Monguió i Abella, Francesc Vayreda i Bofill
Set Polígon Montbau | Polígon Montbau: Unitat Nord-Est