In the present work, we analyse the categories of mixed Hodge complexes and mixed Hodge diagrams of differential graded algebras in these two directions: we prove the existence of both a Cartan-Eilenberg structure, via the construction of cofibrant minimal models, and a cohomological descent structure. This allows to interpret the results of Deligne, Beilinson, Morgan and Navarro within a common homotopical framework. In the additive context of mixed Hodge complexes we recover Beilinson's results. In our study we go a little further and show that the homotopy category of mixed Hodge complexes, and the derived category of mixed Hodge structures are equivalent to a third category whose objects are graded mixed Hodge structures and whose morphisms are certain homotopy classes, which are easier to manipulate. In particular, we obtain a description of the morphisms in the homotopy category in terms of morphisms and extensions of mixed Hodge structures, and recover the results of Carlson [Car80] in this area. As for the multiplicative analogue, we show that every mixed Hodge diagram can be represented by a mixed Hodge algebra which is Sullivan minimal, and establish a multiplicative version of Beilinson's Theorem. This provides an alternative to Morgan's construction. The main difference between the two approaches is that Morgan uses ad hoc constructions of models à la Sullivan, specially designed for mixed Hodge theory, while we follow the line of Quillen's model categories or Cartan-Eilenberg categories, in which the main results are expressed in terms of equivalences of homotopy categories, and the existence of certain derived functors. In particular, we obtain not only a description of mixed Hodge diagrams in terms of Sullivan minimal algebras, but we also have a description of the morphisms in the homotopy category in terms of certain homotopy classes, parallel to the additive case. In addition, our approach generalizes to broader settings, such as the study of compactificable analytic spaces, for which the Hodge and weight filtrations can be defined, but do not satisfy the properties of mixed Hodge theory. Combining these results with Navarro's functorial construction of mixed Hodge diagrams, and using the cohomological descent structure defined via the Thom-Whitney simple, we obtain a more precise and alternative proof of that the rational homotopy type, and the rational homotopy groups of every simply connected complex algebraic variety inherit functorial mixed Hodge structures. As an application, and extending the Formality Theorem of Deligne-Griffiths-Morgan-Sullivan for compact Kähler varieties and the results of Morgan for open smooth varieties, we prove that every simply connected complex algebraic variety (possibly open and singular) and every morphism between such varieties is filtered formal: its rational homotopy type is entirely determined by the first term of the spectral sequence associated with the multiplicative weight filtration. / En aquest treball, analitzem les categories de complexos de Hodge mixtos i de diagrames de Hodge d'àlgebres diferencials graduades en aquestes dues direccions: provem l'existència d'una estructura de Cartan-Eilenberg, via la construcció de models cofibrants minimals, i d'una estructura de descens cohomològic. Aquest estudi permet interpretar els resultats de Deligne, Beilinson, Morgan i Navarro en un marc homotòpic comú.