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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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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
The highest point of the city of Barcelona, the summit of Mount Tibidabo, is crowned by the Temple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose presence is inseparable from the city skyline and, because of its location, is even a point of reference on a metropolitan scale. However, the complex, which consists of a crypt and an upper church accessed by wide steps, has never been really liked by the public.
Tibidabo forms part of the Collserola mountain range, which encloses the city and separates it from the Vallès region. The idea of this natural wall that encloses and protects the city suggested the layout of the lower church, with towers and battlements, resolved with the massive forms of the Romanesque style, as a base on which the upper church, with its vertical Gothic lines, rises.
The crypt or lower church has an excellent sculptural work on the façade by Eusebi Arnau, which combines the basic forms of Romanesque art with Baroque decorative details, especially the Solomonic columns at the entrance, and naturalistic details such as stylised plant motifs. The doorway depicts the Virgin of La Mercè and Sant Jordi and Sant Jaume. An initial project envisaged a flowery decorative repertoire for the upper church (known from old photographs of the model), but at the time of its construction, Enrique Sagnier, who soon had the collaboration of his son José María, opted to refine the forms.
The land at the top of the hill was acquired by a group of citizens and given to the founder of the Salesian order, Saint Joan Bosco, on the occasion of his visit to Barcelona in 1886. He promoted the construction of a church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, along the lines of others in other countries, such as the famous Sacré Cœur de Montmartre in Paris.
The Temple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was built with alms from all over Spain. The work occupied the architect for three decades, until his death in 1931. His son continued his work and completed the construction in 1961.
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