When Antoni Gaudí was just 31 years old, he received his first residential commission: a summer home for stockbroker Manel Vicens i Montaner in the quiet village of Gràcia, just north of Barcelona. What he delivered in 1885—intensely linear, more Moorish in spirit than his signature Modernisme—would elude to what was to come from the now-legendary Catalan talent. But for more than 130 years, the property existed as private apartments, its doors closed to the many tourists eager to visit his projects across the city.
Finally, three years ago, that changed: After seven years on the market, a Spanish bank bought the UNESCO World Heritage Site, intent on transforming it into a museum. And with the help of local design studio DAW, which worked in collaboration with Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos, Casa Vicens opened to the public this past November for the first time. No doubt, Gaudí fans are already flocking to the new site, painstakingly restored to an approximation of the original.
But still, it is an approximation. Less than 15 years after its completion, Vicens sold his custom-made summer home, and in 1925 its new owner, Antoni Jover, converted the one-family house into a three-family residence. Though the expansion was overseen by Gaudí’s friend Joan Baptista Serra de Martínez, the changes sacrificed many aspects of his original design. Perhaps the greatest loss: Gaudí’s original staircase. Through the decades it served as a private home, Gaudí’s design continued to transform: With the expansion of the home and the changing nature of the neighborhood (now it's considered part of Barcelona), the entrance was moved; walls and ceilings were painted new colors, perhaps considered more agreeable for daily life; and the gardens and bicycle-wheel fountain at the front of the house were relocated. Needless to say, the architects tasked with renovating the place had their work cut out for them.
And on a visit last spring, artisans were still buzzing away behind the scaffolding. In the smoking room, restorers removed layer after layer of dingy golden-yellow paint, revealing Gaudí's original blue-green color scheme. Three-dimensional papier-mâché reliefs on the ceilings and walls were being repaired and restored to their original, textural beauty. On the roof, builders were laying new tiles—made in the old technique—to replace the roof and façade. By remaining staunch in their commitment to Gaudí's original vision, gleaned from original photographs and historical records, they would soon shine light on the early stages of his illustrious career.
“Vicens is very important for understanding Gaudí,” explains DAW founder David García Martínez .
For starters, you can glimpse the beginnings of his famous catenary arch in the façade of the house, a network of arches created from bricks. Explains García Martinez: "He makes an optical game on the façade that approaches the vision of the catenary arch."
Of course, the use of ceramic elements as building material will also continue to crop up throughout Gaudí's career, in the undulating forms at Park Güell and the shimmering fish-scaled roof of Casa Batlló.
But perhaps the most important idea Gaudí begins to explore in Casa Vicens is his relationship to the natural world.
"The house is oriented towards nature and Gaudí brings nature into the house," explains Martinez. "At Casa Vicens, the nature-architecture relationship is created through ornamentation and not through the structures or forms."
Throughout the home, this passion is evident, from the front gate’s cast-iron palmetto leaves to the French marigolds and dianthus that adorn the exterior’s ceramic tiles. Painted ceilings reveal trompe l’oeil visions of flora and fauna, and textural papier-mâché tiles create faux foliage on the ceilings and walls.
"Interior and exterior are in constant dialogue through nature," explains García Martinez. "That idea began at Casa Vicens and we see it formalized in subsequent projects." Finally, Gaudí fans can see it for themselves.
