Gaudi’s first two commisions –

Casa Vicens

Gaudi’s first commission was Casa Vicens. It is a beautiful synthesis of a house and nature. It still has “normal” rooms with rectangular shapes which largely disappeared in Gaudi’s later buildings as they became even more organic.

Each room has intricate ceilings and often carved and painted details. The home also has a traditional bathroom with a tub and sink with running water. Most of the rooms flow into the outdoors – which used to be much larger than it is now. Through open windows, balconies and the like, the outside is inside. There is a beautiful room with a domed ceiling of birds, the porch with fountain has palm leaves painted on the ceiling, and the Islamic style blue room is gorgeous.

Palau Guell

Palau Guell was Gaudi’s second commission, and he had a great relationship with the Guells (yes, the same Guells for Park Guell, etc), they had a mutual admiration for each other, and so he was given a wide amount of latitude in what he could do. Much of the home is inspired by parabolic arches, which were used for the main entryways which was very unusual. The home is now a UNESCO site.

The story is that Sra Guell never liked the house so they didn’t live there long. The rooms are predominantly rectangular but have organic shaping of chairs, ledges, as built-in features. The entrance leads to an underground horse stable where you can still see the original unicorn and dog-shaped horse tie-off rings and the round pillars like trees that support the upper levels. The bricks in the entry look normal until you look closer and see they are made of wood, to dampen the noise of horse hooves as carriages came to the house.

As expected, the chimneys on the roof are a riot of color and mosaics. You can see their relationship to Sagrada Familia this early in his career. One of the more unusual things to see in the house is the cat and mouse chairs, which have cats peeking out from the back support of the chair, and 3 mice hiding under the front ruffle of the chair. Sr and Sra Guell each had a separate room and bathroom but they were adjoining in the middle.

For more about Gaudi’s work in Barcelona see here