Today we are visiting Casa Milà or popularly known as La Pedrera (meaning the
'The Quarry'), is a modernist building & was the last civil work designed
by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, built between the years 1906 and 1912. It was commissioned in 1906 by businessman Pere Milà i
Camps and his wife Roser Segimon i Artells. At the time, it was controversial
because of the undulating stone facade and twisting wrought iron balconies and
windows designed by Josep Maria Jujol. Architecturally it is considered
structurally innovative, with a self-supporting stone front and columns, and
floors free of load bearing walls.
The work of Gaudí on the rooftop of La Pedrera was a
collective of his experience at Palau Güell, but with solutions that were
clearly more innovative – this time creating shapes and volumes with more body,
more prominence, and less polychromasia. On the rooftop there are six
skylights/staircase exits (four of which were covered with broken pottery and
some that ended in a double cross typical of Gaudí), twenty-eight chimneys in
several groups, twisted so that the smoke came out better, two half-hidden
vents whose function is to renew the air in the building, crowning the walkway
that goes around this dream castle, four domes that discharged to the facade.
The staircases also house the water tanks; some of these are snail-shaped.
Gaudí, a Catholic and a devotee of the Virgin Mary,
planned for the Casa Milà to be a spiritual symbol.
thank you all for stopping by, I had a blast here and forever in love with Antonio Gaudi...
xxx
