Biography |
| born in Barcelona, the eldest of eight children of José Coderch, chief engineer of the port of Barcelona, and María Luisa de Sentmenat. |
|
1913 |
| |
| admitted to the Barcelona School of Architecture. |
|
1931 |
| |
| after a short spell in Germany, when the Spanish Civil War broke out he joined the nationalist side as a Reserve Officer. |
|
1936 |
| |
| qualified as an architect. |
|
1940 |
| |
| opened a professional practice with his study companion Manuel Valls Vergés (1912). He combined his professional practice with the post of municipal architect of Sitges (until 1945) and collaboration with central Spanish bodies responsible for the development of social housing and reconstruction. |
|
1942 |
| |
| married Ana María Giménez, whom he had met in Malaga during the war. Together they had four children, José Antonio, Ana María, Gustavo and Elvira. |
|
1943 |
| |
| designed their Barcelona home in Plaça de Calvó, where he also moved his practice. |
|
1946 |
| |
| his recently completed Garriga Nogués house attracted the interest of G. Ponti and A. Sartoris. The review Domus began to publish Coderch's work regularly. |
|
1949 |
| |
| construction of the apartment building in La Barceloneta, Ugalde house and the Spanish pavilion for the IX Triennale in Milan consolidated Coderch's position as one of the young masters of Spanish architecture and projected him onto the international scene. Grupo R (Pratmarsó, Bohigas, Gili, Moragas, Sostres, Martorell, Coderch and Valls) was founded on 21 August with a programme which centred on a resumption of contacts with modern architecture in a country which was still very much isolated and out of touch with the contemporary debate. |
|
1951 |
| |
| Member of the CIAM on the recommendation of Sert. He devoted himself wholeheartedly to the project for the Torre Valentina development, where he experimented with new residential solutions for holiday homes, which unfortunately ran up against the incomprehension of the owners. At Sert's invitation, he took part in the CIAM congress in Otterlo, with the presentation of his recently completed project. |
|
1958-59 |
| |
| the disappointment of Torre Valentina and the scant activity of his practice led to a moment of crisis for Coderch, which the painter Tàpies helped him to overcome with the commission of his studio-cum-house. Member of Team X. |
|
1960 |
| |
| in response to a questionnaire sent by Bakema, he wrote his best-known text, No son genios lo que necesitamos ahora (It is not genius that we need now). |
|
1961 |
| |
| purchased and renovated the old Coderch family house at Espolla. |
|
1964 |
| |
| lecturer at the Barcelona School of Architecture. His projects for residential and commercial buildings in urban contexts began to account for much of his professional activity: the Girasol apartment building in Madrid and the Trade buildings and Banco Urquijo and Las Cocheras developments in Barcelona. |
|
1965-69 |
| |
| Coderch's work continued to receive prizes and earn recognition and became a member of the Sant Jordi Royal Academy of Fine Arts. |
|
1970 |
| |
| Manuel Valls left the practice to set up with his son. |
|
1972 |
| |
| won the merit competition for the extension of the Barcelona School of Architecture, which was to be his last work. |
|
1978 |
| |
| a selection of his designs was shown in the exhibition "Catalan Architecture 1950-1977" at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. His work was exhibited in its own right at the II Architecture Biennial in Santiago de Chile (1979), in Madrid (1980) and in Barcelona (1981). |
|
1978-84 |
| |
| died in Barcelona. His remains are buried in the cemetery of Espolla. |
|
1984 |
;)