CASA MILÀ

Description

Essentials about Casa Milà in brief

Together with Casa Battló, which is only a short distance away, Casa Milà is the most famous residential building in Barcelona designed by the Catalan star architect Antoni Gaudí. It was built between 1906 and 1910 for the Milà family on the Passeig de Gràcia and was Gaudí’s last secular building before he concentrated exclusively on the construction of the legendary Sagrada Família church. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Casa Milà can also be visited inside. Changing art exhibitions are held on the upper floor, an apartment is set up as a museum and the roof terrace is also open to the public.

The architecture of Casa Milà

The façade

The curved facade of Casa Milà is a unique example of organic architecture. It stands in stark contrast to the Casa Battló, with its colorful and playful facade. Gaudí deliberately focused the design of Casa Milà on form and construction, using very little color and leaving the materials natural.

The design

With Casa Milà Gaudí did pioneering architectural work. The building is a concrete-iron construction with load-bearing columns without load-bearing walls and retaining walls. This gives residents the unique opportunity to move the walls of their apartment individually. In addition, thoughtful natural ventilation eliminates the need for air conditioning. And even an underground parking garage was taken into account during construction. However, the elevators also envisaged in Gaudí’s design were not installed until much later.

The courtyards

The three courtyards, one round, two elliptical, are design features that Gaudí used repeatedly to provide the rooms with sufficient light and fresh air. Almost all rooms have windows with natural light, which was very unusual for the time. All the stately rooms face the street side or the courtyard of the street carrée, while the servants’ rooms and household rooms face the two courtyards.

The roof

A real highlight is the roof with its steps, roof lights, artfully designed chimneys and the large viewing platform. Some of the chimneys look like medieval or even futuristic knights watching over the roof. All elements are decorated with marble rubble or glass and look like sculptures integrated into the building.

“La Pedrera”

At first, people in Barcelona didn’t think too much of the building, and it quickly became known by the derisive name “La Pedrera” (“The Quarry”). The building owes this name to its irregular façade with its many projections and its massive mass, which can be seen from afar.

Visiting Casa Milà

Casa Milà was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1984 as the first building of the 20th century and can be visited. Changing art exhibitions are held in the former Beletage apartment, which covers about 1,000 square meters. An apartment on the sixth floor of the building is furnished with furnishings from the 1920s and offers an interesting insight into the everyday life of the bourgeoisie (and its staff) during the Modernist period.

By the way, some apartments in the house are actually still inhabited, while the rest of the premises are used as offices. In the attic there is an exhibition worth seeing about the architecture of Antoní Gaudi and of course the Casa Milà itself. The roof terrace above is also accessible and very impressive due to its extraordinary architectural details and its great view over the roofs of the city.