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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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 project creates a garden inside the block at street level. The initial requirements are to create a pleasant atmosphere considering the physical conditions and generate a continuous reading from the interior of the building to the courtyard.
The ground floor and the patio present a sequence of geometric elements that mark the different rhythms of the route and living room. The marble volume is replaced by the plant volume. Natural light and the way in which it gradually becomes present, always with reference to the end of the open garden, is an important part of this transition.
The introduction of vegetation begins with a fall of vegetation from a planter located on the first floor that filters the light entering the interior of the lobby. Once outside, a vegetable corridor is generated thanks to a fence that encloses the ground floor terraces forming a vegetable cube. The next step is a circle of gravel drawn on the marble pavement enhanced with trees of different ports. The plant species mix the deciduous leaf with the perennial creating different sensations. Finally, and as a transition between the two patio levels, the hexagonal pool is placed. In this case, the vegetation closes the space in the perimeter creating a perennial background with a certain tropical character. The vegetation together with the building materials are subjected to this transit from changing to fixed generating different atmospheres or rooms within the site. These rooms have complementary elements such as the ramp, the shower or the chimney cylinder.
The colours of the building are complemented by the plants’ green tonalities, almost always playing with the yellow of the marble, the green and the white of the tiles. In the garden, the colours of the vegetation predominate: the pink and lilac blooms in early spring, the bright green of the first leaves of the Parthenocissus on the garden walls that slowly recover after winter, the intense green of summer, the yellowish and orange tones of the background during autumn and the bare branches in winter.
MAIO, Maria Charneco Llanos, Alfredo Lérida Horta, Guillermo López Ibáñez, Anna Puigjaner Barberà
MAIO, Beatriz Borque Badenas, Maria Charneco Llanos, Alfredo Lérida Horta, Guillermo López Ibáñez, Anna Puigjaner Barberà