Inside Gaudí’s first house: 130-year-old Casa Vicens opens to public in Barcelona
The Catalan architect’s first big commission is considered his ‘manifesto house’ and the genesis of his distinctive style
What is it? Casa Vicens was the first house designed by Antoni Gaudí, better known for his unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia. The Catalan architect built it for stockbroker Manuel Vicens between 1883 and 1885, in Barcelona’s Gràcia district, which was then a village. As his first big job after graduating from the Regional School of Architecture, 33-year-old Gaudí considered Casa Vicens his “manifesto house”, a daring declaration of artistic principles.
Vicens had commissioned it as a summer house, where his family could escape the suffocating heat of summer in the city. Rising to the challenge, Gaudí set about creating a dreamy oasis that would transport the occupants to another world.
Why is it in the news now? For the first time in its 130-year history, last November this four-storey mansion opened to the public. Two years of exhaustive restoration had returned the house, as far as possible, to its original state. “It’s an essential work for understanding Gaudí’s unique architectural language and the development of art nouveau in Barcelona,” says Marta Antuñano, cultural manager of the project.
It has been called “the house where it all began”, containing many of the seeds that would blossom in Gaudí’s later works, such as Casa Batlló or Casa Milà. The design made it one of the first art nouveau buildings in Europe and the house was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2005. It was the last of the six such sites by Gaudí in Barcelona to be opened to the public.
