José Coderch
(1913-1984)

José Antonio Coderch de Sentmenat was born in Barcelona on 26 November 1913. In 1940 he graduated as an architect from the Escola Oficial d'Arquitectura de Barcelona.
In 1942, he set up his office in Barcelona together with Manuel Valls i Vergés, starting on a phase that lasted until 1949, dominated by the proliferation of small commissions for renovations and new buildings. At the same time he was commissioned by official bodies to work on subsidized housing projects for rural areas in need of construction. In the early 1950s he participated in the first phase of the formation of Gruppo R, alongside his office partner Valls, Josep Maria Sostres, Antoni de Moragas and Oriol Bohigas and other young architects interested in the renewal of modern architecture. He was later to withdraw as a consequence of his disagreement with the line taken by the group. The apartment building in the district of Barceloneta, Barcelona (1951), occupies a position of fundamental importance in his work as a whole and belongs to his best-known works; others are the Casa Ugalde (1951), and the housing block Las Cocheras, Barcelona (1969-75).

Coderch was introduced to CIAM by José Lluís Sert. He attended the last congress in Otterlo, after which he attended various Team 10 meetings throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He always kept a certain distance towards the Team 10 discussions. His seminal essay 'It Is Not Geniuses that We Need Now' (1961) is his most important contribution to the Team 10 discourse.
He taught at the Barcelona school of architecture from 1965 onward; the last work he designed was the extension of the school which was completed after his death.

See for more information the Coderch Archive website