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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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 Eixample district, Casa Robert is in the northern corner of the block of houses bordered by Passeig de Gràcia, Rosselló Street, Rambla de Catalunya and Còrsega Street, off Diagonal Avenue. It is an isolated building in the middle of a garden that is public today.
With a rectangular floor plan, the elevated structure of the building includes a semi-basement, ground floor, main floor, attic and walkable roof. The building has two entrances: one facing the rear garden and another (the main one) facing Passeig de Gràcia. This last access leads to a large lobby area that contains the staircase to the ground floor.
Casa Robert is a neoclassical building with a cubic shape that shows three façades on the outside, all finished with stone extracted from the Montgrí Massif (where the owner came from and would end up holding the title of Count). Each façade has a different composition, although they share some main characteristics that unify them in terms of style. The large openings are always aligned in vertical axes and the semi-basement is included in a robust white stone base. The amphitheatre balconies on the ground floor have a flat arch shape, framed with lintels and uprights based on highly plasticised padded ashlars. These balconies, like those on the main floor, are enclosed by stone balustrades. A moulding decorated with a wave-based edging serves to separate the padded facings of the ground floor from the plain ashlar facings of the main floor. The main feature of the main floor is that the balconies, in this case crowned with moulded semi-circular arches, are flanked by delicate piles of flowery Ionic order that support an entablature worked with scroll-shaped corbels. On the cornice of this entablature rest the windows of the attic or second floor, austerely moulded. The balustrade that closes the roof rests on the Corinthian entablature of the attic.
The façade facing the garden has a much more rigorous rhythm, with two lateral bodies flanking the central one, which stands out for its padded walls and for being crowned by a triangular pediment. This pediment houses, in relief, two pigeons among the vegetation holding a shield that, although today it is that of the Generalitat de Catalunya, originally showed the arms of Robert Robert. The main façade, facing Passeig de Gràcia, has a varied composition, playing with the rhythms of the opening axes. In addition, the two balconies at the ends of the main floor have a stone cantilever supported by two large corbels and closed by a cast iron railing. The southern end of this façade has a smaller terraced body that contains a large semi-circular arch framed by a portico of flowery Ionic semi-columns that support an entablature. The arch is enclosed by a monumental wrought iron grille with a pebble design, with gilded cast iron sconces and a golden shield of the Generalitat.
This body forms the main access to the building, and inside it contains a monumental lobby that allowed the visitor to enter the house by car and park inside the garages located on the other side of the garden. This lobby is probably the richest one in the city and is set up as a spectacular colonnaded gallery based on groups of columns and flowery Ionic pilasters that support a barrel vault with lunettes of great stereotomical refinement. The colonnade on the left allows access to the caretaker's and porter's offices, while the colonnade on the right houses the main door of the house. It is crowned by a semi-circular arch topped with a powerful shield (now empty) richly framed with reliefs in the shape of an acanthus leaf, two rampant dogs and a helmet with the crown of the Marquis.
This door allows access to the main staircase, inside a stone box decorated with flowery Ionic pilasters and oeil-de-boeuf framed with bows and laurel garlands. This staircase leads to the space that centralises the entire building: the main lobby on the ground floor. This grand space was conceived as an elevated courtyard covered by a skylight, the height of which also includes the main floor to which it gives access. This monumental cubic room finished in stone serves, at the same time, as a lobby, as a distributor on the ground floor, as a stairwell to the main floor and as an open space. Its stone walls are home to monumental doors with moulded lintels and jambs and oeil-de-boeuf with laurel wreaths. The corners of the room are rounded and its floor is completely covered with white marble, with decorative motifs in marble of other colours. At the bottom of this space is the staircase of the main floor, forming a sinuous marble line enclosed by a railing decorated with gilded bronze pebbles. All the rooms around the staircase have walls and ceilings covered with classically inspired mouldings that, unfortunately, have lost their original polychrome and gilded decoration.
Henri Grandpierre, Joan Martorell Montells