Arxiu Comarcal de l'Alt Penedès
About the institution
The Alt Penedès District Archive, which opened on 11 September 1983, forms part of the District Archive Network and pertains to the Government of Catalonia Ministry of Culture. It is jointly administered by Vilafranca Town Council and the Alt Penedès District Council. The Archive building covers an area of 1,800 square metres and was built on a plot belonging to the municipality. It was designed by the architects Rob Dubois, Shuichi Kobari, Jordi Hidalgo and Daniela Hartmann and currently stores 3,900 lineal metres of documentation. The building has three basic components, which are independent of each other. The first is the document archive, the second is a work room and the third is the consultation room. The consultation room is a projecting element supported by the letters ARX. A roof, which acts as thermal isolation for the document archive, links the three elements together.
The Alt Penedès District Archive is the District's main archive facility and is responsible for bringing together, conserving and disseminating the district's documentary heritage. On account of its former role as capital of a Vegueria and Corregiment (territorial subdivisions), Vilafranca, also has documentation on the districts of the historical Penedès.
The Archive brings together all the documentation from private individuals or public administrations that has a special bearing on the collective history of the district. It also acts as the Administrative Archive of the Alt Penedès District Council and Vilafranca de Penedès Town Council, and it administers the documentation generated by the political and administrative processes of the various departments, services, bodies and companies linked to these administrations.
In this sense the Archive is an institution at the service of the Administration, researchers and citizens. The documentary archives, both public and private, have very varied contents and may include any kind of document (texts, graphics and audiovisuals) and they may be presented on any kind of media, from parchment and paper to electronic storage media. The most important collections are Vilafranca's municipal records (1845-2002), notarial protocols (1343-1986), royal and lordly administrative records (1354-1835), legal records (1835-1998), as well as the photographic, audiovisual, image and sound collections from various institutions and private sources.
