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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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
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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.
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Memory
Martínez develops a floor with three houses on a site which is irregular and with its façades towards an important road and a small square. The position of the staircase and the lifts, oriented towards the interior courtyard forming a virtual bisector, marks the distribution of the homes, as there are two on one side and a third home on the other. Almost all the rooms face the façade, except for the services and the kitchens, through which small patios are enabled. This fit full of casuistries is translated into the exterior conception of the building through a strong expressionist will, which takes into account the prevailing view from Via Augusta. The second and third floors form a tribune at the corner, while the first floor forms a covered balcony, which is repeated on the fourth floor. The building gently recedes as it rises, at the same time purifying itself and leaving the smooth volumes marked horizontally by the windows from side to side.
The Roca Barallat building is located in the Gràcia district, at the intersection between Via Augusta and Narcís Oller Square. It is a building between partitions on a plot of almost rectangular plan, consisting of commercial basements (currenlty -2014- a tobacco shop), a main floor and 6 residential floors.
The façade where the entrance door is located, which faces Via Augusta, has a similar morphology to the other façade, with an articulation with cubist volumetrics, with several balconies of moderate exterior development and gallery balconies that protrude just like the balconies. The elements that make up the balconies and the galleries (wooden frames and sober bars respectively) have the same color. The doors and windows have been standardised according to GATCPAC models and sizes.
The building concentrates all its potential in the angle of the corner where it resorts to various elements in order to confer great dynamism such as the aforementioned galleries, "bow-windows", balconies with various designs, among others.
Inside, it is organised with three floors per landing with a great development of communication spaces and corridors in order to allow the maximum number of direct exits to the outside.
Among the few works built in Gràcia that in the 1930s tried to assume, in a more or less radical way, the forms and principles of the international avant-garde and the modern movement, the Roca Barallat building really stands out. The project was carried out by the architect Carles Martínez Sánchez, who was a member or linked to the Group of Catalan Architects and Technicians for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture (GATPAC).
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