Català-Roca's portraits of an architecture without architects

Until 4 March, the exhibition hall of the Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC) hosts the photographic exhibition Francesc Català-Roca. Architecture without pedigree, curated by Moisés Puente and organised by the Centre Obert d’Arquitectura. The show features snapshots from the "Collection" series, photographs that portray different places in Spain during the decades of the nineteen-fifties, sixties and seventies, images that, as the presentation written by the curator explains, bear witness "to the abrupt changes that were taking place in a Spain that, with difficulties, was emerging from the Civil War, where a good part of the country had barely been touched by industrialisation". On the various journeys Català-Roca made, he captured "the last stirrings of peasant life in Europe, just before its disappearance".

These images, like so many of the photographer's originals -up to 200,000 of them- are deposited in the COAC's Historical Archive. So the Association did not want to overlook the fact that 2022 marks the centenary of Català-Roca's birth, and this exhibition is also a tribute to one of the most important Catalan photographers of the 20th century, who was born in Valls in 1922 and died in Barcelona in 1998. Visitors to the exhibition will find in the photographs details of post-war architecture made with practically no intervention by architects, for their own needs, such as constructions that had to do with farm work. There are also pictures of beach bars, campsites, leisure and entertainment areas, in other words, related to a tourism that was opening up.

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