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About
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Historical Archive which, thanks to its documental richness, provides a large amount of valuable –and in some cases unpublished– graphic documentation.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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Secció transversal de la Universitat Literària de Barcelona.
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- Author:
- Elies Rogent Amat
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- Date:
- 1862
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- Type:
- Drawing
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- Dimensions:
- 59 x 81cm
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- Technique:
- Tinta, Aquarel·la
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- Support:
- Paper de dibuix
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- Fonds / Held by:
- Arxiu Històric del COAC
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Memory
The University building, which takes up two blocks of houses in the Eixample, has a U-shaped floor plan and is organised in two bodies, arranged around individual courtyards or cloisters of Tuscan inspiration, originally corresponding to the Faculty of Arts (on the left) and to the Faculty of Sciences (on the right). In the middle, a shorter central body houses a wide hall and the great staircase on the ground floor, which leads to the first floor, where the central services are located: rectory, paranymph, chapel, aula magna, library.
The façade is structured by this central body, which is higher, and by two towers with a square plan at the ends. The openings, of large dimensions, are semicircular arches, following a free interpretation of the Romanesque style.
In the paranymph decoration, carried out by Josep Mirabent from 1873, a clear change can be observed in the ideological program of the building: from the neo-Romanesque of Catalan origin to derived to a neo-Mudejarism of a Hispanic nature, accentuated by the historical theme paintings that decorate the room.
The University of Barcelona, abolished by Felipe V and moved to Cervera in 1717, was definitively reinstated in 1842. The new building that was to house the institution with dignity was designed by the architect Elies Rogent, within a neo-historic Romanesque that was clearly in tune with the cultural renaissance and medievalism with romantic roots. Built in an Eixample that was just beginning to be urbanised, the then existing faculties were located there, except for medicine.
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UB Historic Building
The University of Barcelona is one of the first buildings to be arranged in the plot designed by Cerdà. Its genesis, however, is older, because Rogent designed several projects for the University in different locations inside the old town that had to return from Cervera to Barcelona after Philip V took it from the city in retaliation for the events of 1714. The final configuration leaves a 130-metre façade on the Gran Via, asymmetrical with respect to Universitat Square, in the middle of two blocks of the Eixample (with a 220-metre front) that it does not fill. The building follows the tradition of the great European universities: two courtyards, one for Science and the one for Humanities, which are completely symmetrical and are separated by a central body with a very powerful marble staircase leading to a beautiful auditorium located above the lobby. The urbanisation of the area, which makes the building adapt to the Cerdà plot, was carried out in the 1930s by architects linked to the GATCPAC. On the short sides, facing Aribau and Balmes streets, there are a series of buildings that prevent the full view of the side façades. The building is built in neo-Romanesque style, with a sober, powerful, severe stone façade, built with beautifully preserved ashlars. The interior spaces are of great beauty and the cloisters still retain their original life and still house several schools linked to the current University of Barcelona. Visiting the building means seeing it through the eyes of today's students who, thanks to its flexibility, can continue to use it with the same freshness of the first day. The sequence of spaces formed by the access lobby, made of worked and exposed stone, and some interesting enough vaults that support the Auditorium and the staircase to access it, is particularly recommended. A visit to either of the two cloisters is also recommended.
Archive
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Drawing
Secció transversal de la Universitat Literària de Barcelona.
Arxiu Històric del COAC
Routes (1)
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Rutes 50