How to get there
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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
Suggestion box
Request the image
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.
close
close
Memory
The 1859 Cerdà plan did not foresee the arrival of Diagonal Avenue to the sea.
The construction of a new esplanade above the treatment plant and next to the incinerator and the thermal power plant, in order to organise the 2004 Barcelona Forum, has finally allowed Diagonal Avenue to reach the sea.
As a true proof of the principle of sustainability promoted by the Forum, new homes, hotels and public facilities are now coexisting and integrating a new down-town, previously marginal and frowned upon.
The Forum esplanade, supported by the Forum Building and the Convention Centre, is an extension of Diagonal Avenue in the shape of a hand with open fingers - a delta towards the sea - which covers most of the now expanded sewage treatment plant. Its surface is 14 Ha.
Diagonal Avenue ascends to overcome the Ronda del Litoral from 4.5 m, at its last point with wheeled traffic, up to 17 m, and then begins to descend gently towards the sea. This cover can be seen as a unitary asphalt towel, a giant five-colour patchwork.
On this esplanade chimneys and services of the treatment plant emerge. One of them has become a meteorological and orientation centre. Folded pergolas have been built on the esplanade for shade, as well as two large hypostyle rooms, which coincide with the structure of the sewage treatment plant tanks and support a sawtooth metal structure, the north faces of which are covered with glass, while the south faces are covered with photovoltaic cell panels (6,500 m2). The two rooms without side enclosures are two almost factory ceilings that protect 13,000 m2.
The toes of the esplanade rise so that their ends become cliffs over the areas of the marina, their interstices house steps and ramps. A ha-ha with steps all around the perimeter of the fingers guarantees an uninterrupted horizon by the presence of railings.
The last toe supports a large photovoltaic pergola of 4,500 m2 with four twisted legs, which will be seen as one of the industrial facilities in this area.
The pergola receives sun, produces energy and shade as if it were made of reeds. It is a bias plane of 112x50m, inclined 35 degrees and facing south. It is the last viewpoint-beldevere of the city on the water, which can be reached by descending a flight of steps under a pallium.
The esplanade serves as support and access to the buildings of the 2004 Forum and the Convention Centre, and it also includes in a few fingers-appendages along the coast both the Sailing School and a ship for dry dock, installations of the treatment plant and many services of the marina.
The esplanade extends to the sea through a future sloping park that will bridge the gap between the main square and the beaches.
The approximate surface area of the esplanade is 167,000 m2, with an appendix paved in a northerly direction, which will border the future university buildings and lead to the La Mina neighbourhood, and the stairs lead to the port.
The square-esplanade of the Forum can be understood as a mantle that covers buildings and industrial activities, the form of which - in plan - is the continuation of a Diagonal Avenue that widens and explodes with a series of fingers-appendices as you approach the sea, this being the true end of Diagonal Avenue. This mantle will be the place where multiple, imprecise and unexpected activities can meet in the future.
One of the origins of the project is this figure, from a new Diagonal Avenue stretched out in the shape of a hand, whose fingers open to the sea and through which membrane stairs make it possible to descend to the port.
The sheet-esplanade on the sewage treatment plant seems to have been moved by a wind or a giant wave that has exposed the built volumes of the lower sewage machinery. The sheet accentuates, with folded edges, this condition of mantle independent of the lower buildings.
The last appendix, in the shape of a tail, goes with some freedom towards the zoo and parallel to the sea.
The fingers that end the esplanade are configured as viewpoints-cliffs emerging from the water of the port and facing the distant horizon of the sea.
The edges of the finger-appendages of the esplanade will be defined by the construction of "ha-has", continuous stairs that go down to a perimeter corridor, whose protection railing has a height that reaches the level of the pavement of the finger or appendix. In this way, the presence of the railing is camouflaged and the limits of the fingers are seen as the end of a pier.
The stairs and ramps that descend between the toes to the platform of the pier facilitate pedestrian access to the port.
The tarmac of different colours is proposed as a pavement.
The asphalt pavement will see the extensions that extend it down the stairs to the port and the walkway; like two crossed hands, the one with asphalt fingers and the one with little green fingers.
The boundary elements such as the edges, the "ha-has" and the steps of the stairs will be made of concrete.
The pallium, located as on the future Sailing School, forms with it a unity, both formal and structural. The surface of the photovoltaic pallet is 4000 m2, its slope is 358 and it faces south.
The photovoltaic pergolas, located on the esplanade, cast an extensive shadow over it. They are, in turn, set up as a semi-covered porch, as a hypostyle hall, as if it were the roof of a large market without façades.
The support structure is a direct reflection of the lower structure of the treatment plant, on which it rests.
The image that these pieces will offer, detached -formally and physically- from the elements that make up the esplanade of the 2004 Forum, will allow us to understand them as symbols of the new way of understanding energy and its new role in the construction of the sustainability that the city of Barcelona has set as a challenge today.
Authors
On the Map
Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works
Constellation
Chronology
-
Forum 2004 Esplanade
Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur
The 1859 Cerdà plan did not foresee the arrival of Diagonal Avenue to the sea. The construction of a new esplanade above the treatment plant and next to the incinerator and the thermal power plant, in order to organise the 2004 Barcelona Forum, has finally allowed Diagonal Avenue to reach the sea. As a true proof of the principle of sustainability promoted by the Forum, new homes, hotels and public facilities are now coexisting and integrating a new down-town, previously marginal and frowned upon. The Forum esplanade, supported by the Forum Building and the Convention Centre, is an extension of Diagonal Avenue in the shape of a hand with open fingers - a delta towards the sea - which covers most of the now expanded sewage treatment plant. Its surface is 14 Ha. Diagonal Avenue ascends to overcome the Ronda del Litoral from 4.5 m, at its last point with wheeled traffic, up to 17 m, and then begins to descend gently towards the sea. This cover can be seen as a unitary asphalt towel, a giant five-colour patchwork. On this esplanade chimneys and services of the treatment plant emerge. One of them has become a meteorological and orientation centre. Folded pergolas have been built on the esplanade for shade, as well as two large hypostyle rooms, which coincide with the structure of the sewage treatment plant tanks and support a sawtooth metal structure, the north faces of which are covered with glass, while the south faces are covered with photovoltaic cell panels (6,500 m2). The two rooms without side enclosures are two almost factory ceilings that protect 13,000 m2. The toes of the esplanade rise so that their ends become cliffs over the areas of the marina, their interstices house steps and ramps. A ha-ha with steps all around the perimeter of the fingers guarantees an uninterrupted horizon by the presence of railings. The last toe supports a large photovoltaic pergola of 4,500 m2 with four twisted legs, which will be seen as one of the industrial facilities in this area. The pergola receives sun, produces energy and shade as if it were made of reeds. It is a bias plane of 112x50m, inclined 35 degrees and facing south. It is the last viewpoint-beldevere of the city on the water, which can be reached by descending a flight of steps under a pallium. -
Premi Ciutat de Barcelona
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Architecture and UrbanismForum 2004 EsplanadeMartínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur
FAD Award
Award-Winner / Winner. Category: Outdoor SpacesForum 2004 EsplanadeMartínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur
EU Mies Award
FinalistForum 2004 EsplanadeMartínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres Tur