Antoni Gaudí's Casa Milà
Casa Milà was built by Antoni Gaudí from 1906 to 1910
With the construction of the Casa Batlló, Gaudí's career reached a new climax. With this building the use of glazed tiles and the undulating movement in the structure for appears for the first time fully in the architecture of Antoni Gaudí. The house is built on top of an existing building that Gaudí transformed into something totally different using numerous references to the Catalan culture.
At Passeig de Gracia, a little further up than where Casa Battló lies, you will find one of the most exciting of Gaudí's buildings, paid for by one of Barcelona's most wealthy persons shortly after the turn of the century. Casa Mila (1906-1910) is currently a museum and so one can visit both the old apartment, the impressive attic and roof top.
Even the roof is an architectural masterpiece…
The building has several features in common with Casa Batlló. Among other things, the fact that Gaudí’s ornamented style manifested itself on the roof of the building. The roof is a fascinating sculpture park that at the same functions as ventilation for the apartments.
A new architectural trend ...
After the building was finished people at Gaudí's time gave Casa Milà several nicknames. One of the, the quarry (La Pedrera) is still used about the building. These nick names reflect the fact that modernism was starting to get unpopular immediately after the turn of the century. The heavily ornamented style of the local Art Nouveau did not satisfy the taste of people in Barcelona and new architectural trends started to become popular in architecture.
One of these movements were functionalism. The contrast between functionalism and the architecture of Gaudí is striking. Gaudí's architecture uses ornamentation all over, while the straight lines and angles of functionalism can be seen as the opposite
register number: ESB65632929)
