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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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 exhibition Species of Spaces, based on Perec’s homonymous book, aims to transform the generic space of a museum into a particular one. That is the starting point of the display designed by MAIO, where a new system of square rooms of identical dimensions define and organize a series of works along the exhibition space.
The display for the exhibition consists in the creation of a grid of rooms within one of the circular spaces of Richard Meier’s building. The second floor of the MACBA becomes a domestic-like space where works of art are placed all along the rooms. The 4,8 x 4,8 m grid allows the construction of a maze-like space, where the specificity of each space is defined by the content but not the continent. The labyrinthine perception arises here by means of a strict repetition of rationality and modularity. Only some windows, strategically placed, communicate the rooms between them.
The walls have been painted in a subtle pink gradient that decreases towards white as the installation gets nearer to the end of the room. The design deals with Perec’s idea of the ordinary and uses a common dry-wall system where the steel studs are uncovered and visible in the doors situated at the corners of the room.
Richard Meier & Partners, Isabel Bachs, Richard Meier, Fernando Juan Ramos Galino
Richard Meier & Partners, Isabel Bachs, Richard Meier, Fernando Juan Ramos Galino
Richard Meier & Partners, Isabel Bachs, Richard Meier, Fernando Juan Ramos Galino
MAIO, Maria Charneco Llanos, Alfredo Lérida Horta, Guillermo López Ibáñez, Anna Puigjaner Barberà
MAIO, Maria Charneco Llanos, Alfredo Lérida Horta, Guillermo López Ibáñez, Anna Puigjaner Barberà
Set Casa de la Caritat de Barcelona