"Those who look for the laws of nature as a support for their new works collaborate with the creator."
Antoni Gaudi i Comet, 1852-1926
Few buildings express this philosophy as comprehensively as Gaudi's Casa Mila, an apartment building completed over the years 1906-12. Commissioned by the Mila family, who occupied the main floor and rented out the other apartments, it is Gaudi's last completed secular work and a landmark of Catalan modernism. A visionary effort at making a total work of art, it was also a kind of poem about the future...
Nicknamed La Pedrera (the stone quarry) by observers while under construction, the structure addresses its corner site and encloses interior space with organic forms accentuated by the undulating ridges denoting the floor levels. Despite the flowing exuberance of the form, the building was not built of reinforced concrete, a technology that was then being explored by architect Auguste Perret in Paris. Instead, the sculptured mass of La Pedrera was chiseled from stone blocks. In this way, the building was a study model (or a dream) about the 20th century, configured through 19th century materials and crafts.
The pattern of the entrance gate may refer to patterns in nature: scales, plant forms, or even cells.
Gaudi used color and texture everywhere, with a profusion of multicolored tiles accenting form and structure outside and on the interior, as on this ceiling...
Note how the subtle, multicolored shadings of the ceiling continue onto the surfaces of the exterior facade, and how the disciplined geometry of the facade shades into the irregular curved surfaces recalling the folds of drapery, at the junction of the facade and the ceiling below it…in the same way that one color shades into another.
A closeup of the metal ribbons forming the balcony railings shows the twisting, organic forms reminiscent of plant forms.
The vaulted attic, where the laundry was located, provided Gaudi with the opportunity to explore his fascination with parabolic arches; there are 270 of them, all executed in stone. Gaudi created models of his catenary curves by hanging weights on strings, drawing the resulting curves, and then turning these images upside down...
An parabolic arch on the rooftop provides a view of the Sagrada Familia, the church Gaudi designed and which began construction in 1882. Like Casa Mila, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The church is slated for completion in 2026.
Devoutly religious, Gaudi had infused Casa Mila with spiritual symbolism and had planned a large statue for the roof. Plans for this were abandoned when it turned out that the building exceeded the cubic volume allowed by the city, and the Mila family had to negotiate with the city government so that the attic, parapet and rooftop sculptures could remain.
Natural forms, religious mysticism and the world of fantasy converge in the mysterious, and to some, disquieting forms of the roof…
…a world where chimneys become masks and the laws of geometry are invoked to generate the shapes of cryptic totems. Besides mysticism and the structural adventurism of Catalan modernism, other strains of thought may have influenced Gaudi. The science fiction writer Jules Verne died the year the building was begun, and proponents of the Arts and Crafts movement were warning about the dangers of a world run by machines. World War I began two years after Casa Mila was completed.
Photo Credit: All photos were generously provided by George Havelka, who also provided most of the other photos in the "Sketches of Spain" series.
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