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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
Located in the Sants-Montjuïc district, the Agricultural Pavilion is located within the grounds of the 1929 International Exhibition, right on the border of the França Xica district and Montjuïc Park. Formed by several bodies, this group of buildings occupies the corner between Passeig de Santa Madrona and Carrer de Lleida, articulating its volumes around a central courtyard today known as Plaça de Margarida Xirgu. Currently, only half of the original buildings are preserved.
It was one of the biggest pavilions of the exhibition, with a surface that exceeded 16,000 m2. The entire complex was distributed around a large central garden courtyard with several porticoed naves and galleries. The whole complex follows the canons of noucentista architecture, adopting, however, an Italian Renaissance language. While the walls of the façades are coated with white and yellow mortar, the supporting elements, the framing of the openings and the decorative elements were made of terra cotta.
The body facing the Passeig de Santa Madrona stands out for the porticoed gallery that surrounds the old main entrance to the site, which frames a monumental terra cotta portal with Ionic pilasters decorated with quarterings. Above the moulded arch of the door there is a terra cotta relief with two allegories of field work and the inscription "AGRICVLTVRA". However, the most important thing about this construction are the multiple octagonal towers that protrude above the roof, covered with tiled domes decorated with ceramic pinnacles, and the large dome with a central drum. The façades of this building include a veritable catalogue of Renaissance windows, based on arch galleries, entablature, pediments, shells and chandelier decoration. At the corner between Carrer de Lleida and Passeig de Santa stands out a plaque supported by two angels made in bronze by Frederic Marès in memory of the architect Manuel Maria Mayol stands out. The façade facing Plaça de Margarida Xirgu presents a large entrance box with lowered arches supported on robust columns with Ionic capitals. This box maintains a very clear formal correspondence with the courtyard of Casal Solleric in Mallorca city, this being a likely source of inspiration. On this façade there is a bas-relief of a classical theme representing an athlete, the work of Frederic Marès. The interiors of this body were greatly transformed due to abandonment and new uses, although the main hall remains - a space with a Greek cross plan crowned by a large dome decorated with paintings referring to life in the countryside, work by Darius Vilàs.
The body facing Carrer de Lleida, today occupied by the Teatre Municipal Mercat de les Flors, presents an access body crowned with domes attached to a large nave with a rectangular plan. The access body, which forms a corner, presents two access boxes formed by three terracotta arches on Tuscan stone columns and two window galleries with Tuscan columns and a terracotta eaves. In the corner, a large shield of Barcelona in terra cotta supported by four angels of the same material was embedded. The angles of this body are finished with towers crowned with domes and ceramic pinnacles. In the middle rises a dome of greater dimensions. The interior of this body houses a large circular hall with large Corinthian columns on the first level and galleries of Ionic columns on the second, bearing the weight of a dome decorated with paintings by the Mallorcan artist Miquel Barceló. On one of the walls that link to the new building of the Institut del Teatre, there is a ceramic mural by Frederic Amat.
The Agricultural Pavilion was built between 1927 and 1929 under the technical direction of the architects Josep Maria Ribas i Casas and Manuel Maria Mayol i Ferrer. They conceived it as a monumental complex of buildings in several bodies around a central square in order to host the agricultural section of the International Exhibition of 1929. During the post-war period the pavilions that surrounded the central square on its northern and eastern sides they were completely demolished and replaced by new homes, leaving less than half of the buildings that made up the complex standing. These went on to house municipal warehouses and workshops and, between 1964 and 1984, the Mercat Central de la Flor, until it was moved to the Mercabarna area of the Zona Franca.
In 1983, the city council's culture councillor, Maria Aurèlia Capmany, promoted the creation, in the nave perpendicular to Carrer de Lleida, of Mercat de les Flors, a municipal centre for dance and movement arts. The building, reopened in 1985, was remodeled to accommodate its new uses and its main dome (12 metres in diameter) was redecorated by Majorcan artist Miquel Barceló.
From 1999, the sector facing the Passeig de Santa Madrona was also rehabilitated to host the headquarters of Teatre Lliure, an institution founded in Gràcia in 1976 and which would grow with the inauguration of the new headquarters in November 2001. On the occasion of that inauguration, the old central courtyard was redeveloped with a new square which was dedicated to Margarida Xirgu. Parallel to these refurbishments, on the northern flank of the square, which had also been demolished, the new headquarters of the Institut del Teatre, an underground car park and Plaça Ovidi Montllor were built there. All in all, the complex is currently known as the City of Theatre, as it houses the Mercat de les Flors Municipal Theatre, the Teatre Lliure Foundation, and the Theatre Institute.
Manuel Maria Mayol i Ferrer, Josep Maria Ribas i Casas
Iñaki Baquero Riazuelo, Josep Bohigas Arnau, Francesc Pla Ferrer
Iñaki Baquero Riazuelo, Josep Bohigas Arnau, Francesc Pla Ferrer
Set Pla General de l'Exposició Internacional de 1929