{"id":9620,"date":"2026-06-18T10:00:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angesfinanciers.org\/?p=9620"},"modified":"2026-06-19T15:13:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T15:13:57","slug":"casa-vicens-was-antoni-gaudis-manifesto-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/angesfinanciers.org\/index.php\/2026\/06\/18\/casa-vicens-was-antoni-gaudis-manifesto-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Casa Vicens was Antoni Gaud\u00ed’s “manifesto home”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Casa<\/div>\n

Continuing our Gaud\u00ed Centenary<\/a> series we look at the first house designed by Antoni Gaud\u00ed<\/a>, Casa Vicens, which was a testing ground for his later work and a masterpiece in its own right.<\/span><\/p>\n

Construction began on Casa Vicens in 1883 when Gaud\u00ed was 31 years old \u2013 the same year he took over the design for the Sagrada Fam\u00edlia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The cathedral became Gaud\u00ed’s masterpiece and what he is most known for, but Casa Vicens is widely considered the first major work of the Catalan Modernisme movement and a testing ground for themes that informed Gaud\u00ed’s later works.<\/p>\n

\"Casa
Casa Vicens is the first house completed by Antoni Gaud\u00ed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Casa Vicens, the first house designed by Gaud\u00ed, has a distinctly more geometric appearance compared to the fluid, organic forms of the subsequent works he became known for.<\/p>\n

Completed in 1885 as a summer home for stockbroker Manel Vicens i Montaner, Gaud\u00ed drew upon Orientalist design and Moorish architecture when designing the home.<\/p>\n

Colourful ceramic tiles frame stone masonry on the external walls, triangular arches encircle the second floor, and decorated chimneys punctuate the roof perimeter.<\/p>\n

\"Casa
Checkerboard tiling adorns the home’s exterior<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Considered Gaud\u00ed’s first masterpiece, it is the work of a young architect fizzing with invention but still fumbling towards the style that would later become his own: the organic, undulating, alien buildings that utterly undermined ideas about what architecture could be and that haunt machine hallucinations 140 years on,” wrote Edwin Heathcote in the Financial Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Its candy colours, dazzling geometric ornament, chequerboard tiles and finely wrought ironwork make it appear unreal, a kind of hybrid fairytale castle and witch’s house.”<\/p>\n

“If the outside is eccentric, the interiors are nuts,” Heathcote continued. “A cacophony of colours, frescoes, materials and patterns, each room has a distinctive and wholly original feel though the overall effect is slightly queasy, a sensual overload even for someone like me who has a lot of time for Gaud\u00ed’s vivid hyperactivity.”<\/p>\n

\"Casa
Nature-inspired symbolism features throughout the house<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gaud\u00ed was first commissioned to design Casa Vicens in 1878, fresh from graduating from Barcelona’s School of Architecture, where his talents were doubted by tutors. At the time, the only completed project to his name was a section of perimeter fence at the Parc de la Ciutadella.<\/p>\n

Orientalism was a popular design style at the time, and a revival in Moorish architecture had also come about in Barcelona in the mid-nineteenth century, which had an influence on the Catalan Modernisme movement in the late 19th century \u2013 all of which were points of reference for Gaud\u00ed at Casa Vicens.<\/p>\n

What first made an impression on him when visiting the site of the home was the golden yellow marigolds growing there, so much so that Gaud\u00ed covered the exterior of the home with tiles depicting the flowers.<\/p>\n

\"Interior
The walls of the main bedroom depict passionflowers. Photo by Pol Viladoms<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not only in the home’s facade tiles, but all over Casa Vicens are symbols drawn from nature \u2013 a great source of inspiration for Gaud\u00ed throughout his career.<\/p>\n

The passionflower, a symbol of Jesus’s crucifixion in Spanish Catholicism, features on the walls of the main bedroom. Gaud\u00ed designed the flowers with 10 petals to represent the 10 apostles said to have gathered at the crucifixion, the inner ring of the flower represents Jesus’s crown of thorns, and the three prongs at the centre represent the three nails used to fix him to the cross.<\/p>\n

Fern motifs in the sgraffito in the main bedroom represent good luck, while blackberries in the ceiling panels represent prosperity and wellbeing.<\/p>\n