Intro

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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.

Aureli Mora i Omar Ornaque
Directors arquitecturacatalana.cat

credits

About us

Project by:

Created by:

Directors:

2019-2024 Aureli Mora i Omar Ornaque

Documental 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 Ornaque

Collaborators:

2019-2024 Lluis Andreu Sergi Ballester Maria Jesús Quintero Lucía M. Villodres Montse Viu

External Collaborators:

2019-2024 Helena Cepeda Inès Martinel

With the support of:

Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de Cultura

Collaborating Entities:

ArquinFAD

 

Fundació 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.

Design & Development:

edittio Nubilum
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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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Informació bàsica de protecció de dades

Responsable del tractament: Col·legi d Arquitectes de Catalunya 'COAC'
Finalitat del tractament: Tramitar la sol·licitud de còpies digitals dels documents dels quals l’Arxiu Històric del COAC gestiona els drets d'explotació dels autors, a més d'aquells que es trobin en domini públic.
Legitimació del tractament: El seu consentiment per tractar les seves dades personals.
Destinatari de cessions o transferències: El COAC no realitza cessions o transferències internacionals de dades personals.
Drets de les persones interessades: Accedir, rectificar i suprimir les seves dades, així com, l’exercici d’altres drets conforme a l’establert a la informació addicional.
Informació addicional: Pot consultar la informació addicional i detallada sobre protecció de dades en aquest enllaç

How to get there

In Pictures

Memory

The construction of the interior space is the result of a set of design and construction operations. The first of them consists of sliding the formwork of the floor plans of the rooms, forming a set of polygons that regulate the different surfaces that make up the first interior façade. This set of plans that energise the space help to control the acoustics of the great hall.

This first enclosure is built using concrete cornices and railings made in two planes, one of glass and the other of cast aluminum elements, which, while maintaining their diaphanous and crystalline quality, avoid the problems of vertigo, cleaning, maintenance and the replacement of its various parts. Two slots, one for lighting and the other for air injection that pressurises the corridors, complete this first membrane. This façade is complemented by the interior that encloses the rooms formed by the elliptical surfaces that enclose the bathrooms, covered with curved sheets of aulocobond and the cylindrical pillars lined with mahogany palm of equal section throughout their height, which they collect the tickets from the rooms.

The second project operation is developed in the section. This space is structured vertically in three parts: the lower one, 10 m high, topped by inclined curved surfaces that correspond to the closure of the technical plants and which, due to its slightly vaulted condition, reinforces the personality of this first level which also has differentiated air conditioning.

The second level, which is part of another visual plan, is made up of the twelve floors of rooms that make up the central part of the 42 m high space through the game of polygonal axis. Finally, the two floors recede allowing light to enter and smoke to escape, which would turn this space, in the event of a fire, into a zenithally open patio. The last floors with the curved layout and the opaque windowsills act as the end of this whole space. The lighting is achieved with a large stained-glass window facing north and is stiffened with broken and horizontal ribs.

A set of metal profiles make the knots, and, in their folds, there is the structural metal carpentry that supports the glass. A canopy goes through the stained glass to collect the access and arrival of cars. This large stained-glass window and openings in the roofs illuminate the hall with northern light, making artificial light unnecessary. This causes the spatial perception to be reversed during the night or day. When it is daytime, the space is projected outwards, accentuating the natural light on the facets, edges and planes. At night the process is reversed, the space closes in on itself, the artificial light marks and follows the lines and the stained glass that reflects the interior and shows the emblematic lights of the city. On the sides of the stained glass are two large concrete screens made with sliding formwork and which contain all the vertical installations serving each floor for connecting and closing circuits. These walls include the air conditioning, extraction and renewal of air in the bathrooms, evacuation of gases and chimney ducts, trolley lifts, suitcase lifts and clothes ducts, the plant offices, emergency stairs and safety installation.

These walls make the relationship between the users and all the service networks without crossings possible, and form the main access façade on the outside, depriving the view of the rooms from the outside and causing a strong change in scale which helps place the building on the ground.

Author: Carlos Ferrater i Lambarri

Authors

How to get there

On the Map

Awarded
Cataloged
Disappeared
All works

Constellation

Chronology

  1. Rey Juan Carlos I Hotel

    Josep Maria Cartañá i Gubern, Carlos Ferrater i Lambarri

    Rey Juan Carlos I Hotel

    The construction of the interior space is the result of a set of design and construction operations. The first of them consists of sliding the formwork of the floor plans of the rooms, forming a set of polygons that regulate the different surfaces that make up the first interior façade. This set of plans that energise the space help to control the acoustics of the great hall. This first enclosure is built using concrete cornices and railings made in two planes, one of glass and the other of cast aluminum elements, which, while maintaining their diaphanous and crystalline quality, avoid the problems of vertigo, cleaning, maintenance and the replacement of its various parts. Two slots, one for lighting and the other for air injection that pressurises the corridors, complete this first membrane. This façade is complemented by the interior that encloses the rooms formed by the elliptical surfaces that enclose the bathrooms, covered with curved sheets of aulocobond and the cylindrical pillars lined with mahogany palm of equal section throughout their height, which they collect the tickets from the rooms. The second project operation is developed in the section. This space is structured vertically in three parts: the lower one, 10 m high, topped by inclined curved surfaces that correspond to the closure of the technical plants and which, due to its slightly vaulted condition, reinforces the personality of this first level which also has differentiated air conditioning. The second level, which is part of another visual plan, is made up of the twelve floors of rooms that make up the central part of the 42 m high space through the game of polygonal axis. Finally, the two floors recede allowing light to enter and smoke to escape, which would turn this space, in the event of a fire, into a zenithally open patio. The last floors with the curved layout and the opaque windowsills act as the end of this whole space. The lighting is achieved with a large stained-glass window facing north and is stiffened with broken and horizontal ribs. A set of metal profiles make the knots, and, in their folds, there is the structural metal carpentry that supports the glass. A canopy goes through the stained glass to collect the access and arrival of cars. This large stained-glass window and openings in the roofs illuminate the hall with northern light, making artificial light unnecessary. This causes the spatial perception to be reversed during the night or day. When it is daytime, the space is projected outwards, accentuating the natural light on the facets, edges and planes. At night the process is reversed, the space closes in on itself, the artificial light marks and follows the lines and the stained glass that reflects the interior and shows the emblematic lights of the city. On the sides of the stained glass are two large concrete screens made with sliding formwork and which contain all the vertical installations serving each floor for connecting and closing circuits. These walls include the air conditioning, extraction and renewal of air in the bathrooms, evacuation of gases and chimney ducts, trolley lifts, suitcase lifts and clothes ducts, the plant offices, emergency stairs and safety installation. These walls make the relationship between the users and all the service networks without crossings possible, and form the main access façade on the outside, depriving the view of the rooms from the outside and causing a strong change in scale which helps place the building on the ground.
  2. Premio Nacional de Arquitectura

    Award-Winner / Winner
  3. Fitness Centre of the Hotel Rey Juan Carlos I

    Carlos Ferrater i Lambarri

    Fitness Centre of the Hotel Rey Juan Carlos I

    The idea of building an underground building was born from the urban planning impossibility of building on the ground level. The building therefore goes underground looking for some old cement slabs at a depth of 7m. What at first glance reads like a set of walls in the form of a sculpture in the landscape, inside, this perception becomes somewhat misleading. The false walls turn out to be girders with large edges capable of supporting large skylights and bearing the weight of the earth, achieving a certain spatial transparency and helping to connect the different areas of the program inside. The central patio, with a small area (a little bit over 100m2), is designed in the shape of a star and, on the other hand, this allows, thanks to its long arms, to penetrate the light in depth while at the same time hiding part of its layout which makes it difficult to discover its scale. The building is built with a single material (reinforced concrete) and the construction process proceeds only with the geometric order of the formwork that is more taken care of in the false walls and is left raw in the formation of the inclined slabs. A single constructive detail - in the change of section of the walls of the lower level by increasing and forming screens that define the central space - allows the waterproofing and formation of the water mirror. The program is organised on two levels: the lower level contains the changing rooms, saunas, jacuzzi, Turkish baths and activities of a more private nature. On the upper level - located underground but in contact with the garden through ramps that visually communicate it with the outside - contains all the activities typical of a centre of these characteristics: aerobics, yoga, dance, weight rooms, cardiovascular, relaxation, swimming pool, beauty centre, medical centre, shop and auxiliary services. A double perimeter wall connected to an installation room provides all the technical needs of the different spaces, thus freeing the ceilings and floors from the need to accommodate technical elements and thus achieving great transparency. In the end, the building is shown to us as an underground light box that connects the interior space and gardens with the exterior, takes advantage of the reflections of light in the water, visually communicates the different spaces and prevents views from the outside.

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