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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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.
It is a large four-sided building made up of various structures that form a monumental architecture; a synthesis, stylistically speaking, of historicist and Catalan Art Nouveau architecture. It is structured in elevation, mainly on the ground floor and three floors, with a monumental two-coloured roof with several slopes made up of green and red ceramic tiles. With a square floor plan, it incorporates an atrium on one of the façades on the ground floor and over a tribune, a structure that is reproduced in the rest of the elevations, giving the complex the appearance of an attached tower, which enhances the castle-like appearance of the complex. In addition, in the central part of the building there is a rectangular-shaped building with a tile-covered lantern, of which the crenellated structure and the decoration with arcatures imitating Lombard Romanesque style stand out, decoration that is also found in the friezes of the roofs and in the attached tower. In short, the use of structural elements associated with medieval architecture is a constant throughout the building. An example of this medievalism are the groups of trigeminate windows topped with semicircular arches and separated by columns that are located throughout the top floor, or the decorations on the imposts of the opening sills, which in some cases reproduce floral motifs. In terms of Catalan Art Nouveau decoration, the roof of the building is decorated with a number of chimneys covered with coloured ceramic tiles forming a mosaic or frieze which, together with other decorative motifs, reinforces the Catalan Art Nouveau character of the building. Also noteworthy are the decorations on the fronts of the balcony slabs, made with glazed ceramic tiles that reproduce floral motifs. Above the main doorway there is a balcony with a unique railing made up of quadrilobed oculi with a slab made of iron beams and flat brick vaults covered and painted with geometric motifs. On this same main façade, at the height of the lintel of the first floor, there is a coat of arms with the letter B, the initial letter of the original owner of the tower. The entire work is covered with a rendering that imitates irregular rows of stone ashlars. In short, a monumental building that reproduces the character of a medieval castle with decorations that recall the Art Nouveau style.
The country house of the owners of Cal Bassacs, as in most of the textile colonies, was built as a home for the owners, generally temporary; it is a large stately building that also serves as a place of dominion. Its monumentality favours the symbolism of the building, showing that the entrepreneur is the master and externalising his social and economic status.
The founding owners of the Cal Bassacs factory and colony were the married couple Joan Teixidor i Ballús and Raimunda Bassacs i Fornell, from Berga and Gironella respectively. Both families were linked to the spinning and/or textile industry prior to the construction of the Cal Bassacs factory, at least since the 18th century. The first news related to the factory begins at the beginning of the sixties of the 19th century, first with the purchase of the land and then with the beginning of the works of the factory, which would finally end up with the construction of two factories. The Teixidor-Bassacs family also had a workshop in their usual residence, located in what is now the Plaça de la Vila de Gironella. The business with the Cal Bassacs factories was basically to rent them, although some of the successors also founded a company dedicated to spinning and weaving.
The tower was built around 1900, in the area of the garden that was used as the factory's warehouse. The tower had a chapel located at ground floor level, on the east side of the main entrance door, and which had direct access – this was used for some years to celebrate masses until the parish church of Santa Maria de Cal Bassacs was built.
In the last years of the textile factory, part of the tower was also used as a factory warehouse.
The building is structured into a ground floor and four upper floors, with a practically square floor plan. The main façade is particularly noteworthy, facing south, with a monumental entrance and a small tower to the west. The interior is organised around the stately staircase. The floors distribute the different functions of the building: the ground floor with the chapel and the service quarters, on the main floor there are dining rooms and living rooms, and on the second and third floors, the owners' rooms and the service quarters, respectively.
The construction is made of exposed stone, joined with mortar and larger at the corners. The balconies on the main floor have interesting floral decoration and mouldings. The floral capitals are found in the lower part of the building.
This tower was conceived as a stately home for the owners of the Cal Bassacs spinning and weaving factory (1865), at the end of the 19th century or beginning of the 20th century. It was designed according to the dominant ideas of the time (historicist architecture) with some Catalan Art Nouveau elements, such as chimneys and tiled roofs with patterned tiles.
In the 1950s, the building was converted into a school for the Brothers of Christ the Worker and underwent many modifications. In the 1960s or 1970s, the garden was replaced by a new hall, now part of the factory warehouse.
autoria desconeguda
Set Colònia de Cal Bassacs