Designed by Antoni Gaudí, completed in 1910 Barcelona, Spain
Casa Milá, located at the corner of the Paseo de Gracia and the Calle Provenza in
Barcelona, Spain, was designed and built between 1906 and 1910. It exemplifies the
exuberant forms and distinctly personal architectural sensibility of Antoni Gaudí (1852–
1926), whose work influenced the development of Modernismo, the Catalan adaptation of Art Nouveau.
Popularly known as “La Pedrera” (The Quarry), the large apartment building,
commissioned by wealthy businessman Pedro Milá i Camps and his wife, Rosario
Segimón Artells, received widespread critical attention for its massive, undulating facade
and innovative architectural and structural details. Although Casa Milá has been
described as a precursor of the Einstein Tower (1921) in Potsdam, designed by Erich
Mendelsohn (1887–1953), the explicitly organic references of Gaudí’s structure exhibit
closer stylistic affinities to Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) than to the German Expressionism
of Mendelsohn’s work.
Casa Milá is the last secular project undertaken by Gaudí before devoting his energies
exclusively to the design and construction of the Sagrada Familia (1926), also in
Barcelona. Gaudí began work on the Casa Milá during construction of another private
residence he designed (1906) on the Paseo de Gracia, Casa Battlò. As with the earlier
structure, the serpentine, organic appearance of Casa Milá results from the rhythmic
alternation of concave and convex bays and balconies and is further heightened by the
organic curves of the wrought-iron grillwork. Following a dispute with Milá over the
inclusion of a religious sculpture on the facade of the building, Gaudí abandoned the
project in 1909, leaving its completion to project contractor José Bayó Font. The
building’s interior and exterior decorative finishes were executed by Gaudí’s assistant,
José Jujol. The present appearance of the building reflects the conversion of the attic
structure into apartments, executed by F.J.Barba Corsini in 1954.
The J-shaped plan of Casa Milá contains two internal courtyards whose rounded forms
are consistent with the building’s general lack of orthogonal planes and are echoed in the
building’s facade. One of the most significant aspects of Casa Milá is the open plan of
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each floor, achieved by Gaudí’s use of columns rather than masonry bearing walls
throughout the structure. This strategy, which anticipates the free plan advocated by
modernists such as Le Corbusier, allowed architectural and structural autonomy for both
the facade and the individual floors. Additional structural support was provided by an
extensive framework of iron beams embedded in the floors, facade, and balconies,
including an elaborate umbrella-shaped iron structure within the floor of the courtyard
facing the Paseo de Gracia.
Among Gaudí’s numerous innovative design elements was a spiral ramp intended to
provide automobile access from the ground floor down to the basement garage and
continuing up to the top floor of the building. Although the ramp was later deemed too
large for the courtyard and never completed, the idea anticipates by almost 20 years the
internal ramp designed by Le Corbusier for Villa Meyer (1925) in Paris.
Because of the influence of novecentismo, or 19th-century historical eclecticism, in
Barcelona at the time Casa Milá was under construction, the building’s
unconventional facade met with a wide range of critical responses on
completion. The visual plasticity, marine-inspired decorative elements,
and grotto-like lobby spaces of Casa Milá were hailed by some
contemporaries as the pure architectural expression of a Mediterranean
sensibility, an interpretation strengthened by Gaudí’s published comments praising
Mediterranean light and shadow. It has also been suggested that the design of Casa
Milá’s facade was influenced by the massive, towered masonry structures of the Berber
tribes in North Africa, a region visited by Gaudí in 1887.
The materials and decoration of the facade of Casa Milá, particularly the use of
Catalonian limestone facing and ornate wrought-iron grillwork, reflect Gaudí’s interest
and background in local craft traditions. These choices also typify Gaudí’s deep
commitment to Catalan culture, which at the turn of the 20th century underwent a
widespread social, political, and economic revival known as the Renaixença, or Catalan
Renaissance.
Gaudí, a devout Catholic and follower of the cult of Mary, also intended Casa Milá to
serve a symbolic religious function. The explicit Marian references embedded in the
building’s facade include an inscription of the prayer of the rosary along the cornice and
a monumental sculpture group of the Virgin and two angels. The sculpture was intended
for a niche in the facade above the corner of the Paseo de Gracia and the Calle de
Provenza. However, a violent outbreak of anticlericalism in Barcelona in 1909 resulted in
the owner’s decision not to include the sculpture; Gaudí abandoned the project soon
afterward.
The undulating attic and roof of Casa Milá serve as a base for the elaborate sculptural
forms housing the building’s ventilation shafts, chimneys, and access structures, which
collectively produce Casa Milá’s distinctive roofline. The roof is celebrated for its
inventive use of Catalan vaults, which are composed of roof tiles laid end on end,
supported by transverse ribs. This technique, which may be compared to concrete
eggshell vaulting, permits great flexibility in the design of the vaults. In addition to the
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attic vaults at Casa Milá, which take the form of catenary arches, Gaudí used Catalan
vaults at numerous other projects, including the roof of the school building of the nearby
Sagrada Familia (1909). At Casa Milá, however, the attic arches stretch from the ground
to the roof of the attic structure, recalling the arcaded corridors Gaudí designed for the
Colegio de Santa Teresa de Jesús (1894) in Barcelona.
The decoration of the attic of Casa Milá represents a conflation of Gaudí’s sculptural
design aesthetic with local and regional artistic traditions. His use of azulejos , brightly colored
ceramic tile fragments embedded in masonry, at Casa Milá, the Park Güell (1914), and
other projects throughout his career contributed to the Catalan craft revival of the early
20th century. Although Casa Milá has received much critical attention as an Art Nouveau
monument, its sculptural plasticity suggests a more three-dimensional—and more
uniquely personal—design aesthetic than that of Art Nouveau.
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