<\/p>\n
Criticised in its time for its excessive originality, La Pedrera (also called Casa Mil\u00e0), was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco<\/a> in 1984. Three years later, it opened to the public, and from then on has been visited by millions of people anxious to discover Gaud\u00ed’s ingenious universe.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pere Mil\u00e0 and Roser Segimon were an upper class couple who, like most well-to-do families in Barcelona, wanted to live on Passeig de Gr\u00e0cia, paradigm of bourgeois splendour<\/strong>. Mil\u00e0 was a dandy, press promoter and owner of the Monumental bull ring. Segimon was a young widow. Her first husband had made his fortune in Latin America, was thirty-eight years older than her and on his death he left her a small fortune.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After Mil\u00e0 and Segimon married in 1905, they invested part of the inheritance on a plot of land on the corner of Passeig de Gr\u00e0cia and Carrer Proven\u00e7a, and left it in Gaud\u00ed\u2019s skillful hands, who at the time was completing the famous\u00a0Casa Batll\u00f3 renovation, whose developer was Pere Mil\u00e0\u2019s father\u2019s business partner. The Catalan architect planned La Pedrera as a large property with a ground floor and five floors<\/strong> and, as was customary, reserved the entire main floor area for Mil\u00e0 and his wife, which came to 1,300 square metres.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nonetheless, differences soon arose between Gaud\u00ed, who now aged 54 and at his most creative, wanted to work with total freedom, and the developers, who were dissatisfied with his elevated budget and daring constructive and decorative ideas. Nor did society seem prepared either for such a radical work, with the newspapers of the time publishing the negative comments and jokes made about Gaud\u00ed\u2019s latest creation.Despite this initial incomprehension, La Pedrera<\/strong>, (\u201cquarry\u201d in Catalan, the nickname given due to its rocky fa\u00e7ade) led to the culmination of the personal style<\/strong> that the genius had been developing in former works.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n La Pedrera has three fa\u00e7ades: one on Passeig de Gr\u00e0cia, one on the chamfered corner and one on Proven\u00e7a Street. All of them are robust and dynamic, two concepts that are actually quite contradictory, but which are combined by harmonising the solidness of stone with undulating lines<\/strong>, the sinuousness of the balconies and the irregularity of their 150 windows.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Measuring 30 metres high, the fa\u00e7ades\u2019 84 metre long extension is unequally distributed. The longest fa\u00e7ade of La Pedrera is found on Proven\u00e7a Street and measures 43.35 metres, while the other two occupy around 20 metres each. The monument is unified by means of horizontal sequences that are situated between each one of the floors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The fa\u00e7ades are constructed with stone from Vilafranca del Pened\u00e8s and Garraf<\/strong>. Their characteristic creamy, white colour undergoes constant mutations, whether it is throughout the day or during the different seasons of the year. These changes are due to the varying positions of the sun that, along with the texture of the stone, generates a sensation of movement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [metaslider id=1267]<\/p>\n An agile and dynamic architecture for the entrance floor of La Pedrera was conceived in order that the passing from one space to the other would be fluid and natural. Gaud\u00ed created two great entranceways, designed in wrought iron and glass, which meant the interior could be viewed from the exterior and which facilitated communication with the outside. Once inside the house, the vestibules and the wide patios act as areas of transition between the streets and the residences.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The architect organised the entire ground floor of La Pedrera around two central patios, which were designed with the objective of providing natural light and ventilation to the residences, while at the same time, grouped together the circulation that went around the different floors of the building. But, without a doubt, one of the most revolutionary concepts of the time, was the lift as the main means of access to the residences, leaving the stairs as auxiliary and service access.<\/p>\n [metaslider id=1287]<\/p>\n The layouts of the flats in La Pedrera are organised around an innovative concept of space and new way of understanding architecture<\/strong>: in other words, the open-plan system. Gaud\u00ed employed this method when building the apartments which was quite ahead of its time in construction methods.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thanks to this breakthrough, the entire house is supported by a structure of columns, girders and beams, metaphorically similar to a skeleton, which allows Gaud\u00ed to do away with load-bearing walls<\/strong> and set out the floors and the interiors of the flats with greater freedom and flexibility. In fact, all the floors had different layouts and all the flats offered a diversity and a variability that had been non-existent up to the time, as the walls of the flats not only could be positioned in any place, but could also be modified, moved and could change their function.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Behind this innovation underlay a functional intention, given that Gaud\u00ed wanted to facilitate possible future transformations of the flats of La Pedrera: in other words, that they could evolve and be adapted to the necessities of future tenants and owners.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The last floor, the attic, is treated by Antoni Gaud\u00ed as the crowning piece of La Pedrera<\/strong>, as much from a plastic as functional point of view, in a way that this storey is endowed with its own architectonic system and clearly defined original forms. It is a construction independent from the other floors of residences, a structure over another structure and a space with a different task and personality.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gaud\u00ed devised the attic of La Pedrera as a kind of chamber that sheltered the building from extreme temperatures<\/strong>, whether in summer or winter, a thermal regulator inspired by the model of the Catalan attic, common in farms and in ancestral homes. However, instead of building this insulating chamber with walls and beams in the traditional manner, the architect designed 270 brick arches<\/strong>, of different heights and widths, but all of them parabolic, in other words, similar to an open curve and symmetrical in respect to an axis. Moreover, these arches, on which the terrace of La Pedrera rests, create an undulating sequence that generates a sensation of movement within the attic.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As a result, this area emerges as open-plan and continuous, with neither walls nor columns to impede fluidity, whose arches evoke an organic space resembling the inside of a large animal.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gaud\u00ed deploys all his creative and expressive ability on La Pedrera\u2019s roof terrace, converting this area, which at the start of the 20th century was hardly ever taken into consideration, into a universe of shapes, silhouettes and original textures that transcend architecture<\/strong> and turn this section into a work of art in its own right.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From a formal, aesthetic point of view, the architect\u2019s main intention was that the roof terrace harmonise with the undulating rhythms that characterize the fa\u00e7ade. Then, that the terrace, comprising of sections of varying volumes, would rise and fall generating different levels linked by stairs that vary in number of steps, size and shape. This staggered structure also corresponds to the uneven height of the attic arches which the terrace rests upon. Moreover, Gaud\u00ed solves the necessary functions of the terrace by grouping together and organising the arrangement of elements on this floor: the stairwells, the chimneys and the ventilation towers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Transformed into sculptural works, these fantastical figures have been interpreted in many different ways and over time have been related to different symbolic aspects. All in all, the architect, by combining art and architecture, managed to create a singular space that comes over as both insinuative and evocative.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n La Pedrera was the last civil work of Antoni Gaud\u00ed. The architect united aestheticism and functionalism in a building of innovative structure. La Pedrera was in its time subject to controversy owing to its original appearance.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This book on La Pedrera<\/a> proposes a complete guided tour around Gaud\u00ed’s building and helps the reader to discover in detail the inside and outside of Casa Mil\u00e0. Published by Dosde<\/a>, the book includes numerous photographs and 3D illustrations carried out exclusively for this book.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\nThe origins of La Pedrera<\/h2>\n
![\"Facade](\"https:\/\/qa-dosde.qamoon.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/fachada-la-pedrera-gaudi-barcelona-dosde-publishing.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/qa-dosde.qamoon.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Boton-descubrir-mas-EN.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe fa\u00e7ades of La Pedrera<\/h2>\n
![\"Main](\"https:\/\/qa-dosde.qamoon.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/fachada-actual-la-pedrera-gaudi-barcelona-dosde-publishing.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe entranceways of La Pedrera<\/h2>\n
The inside of La Pedrera: the apartments<\/h2>\n
The attic<\/h2>\n
![\"Arches](\"https:\/\/qa-dosde.qamoon.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/desvan-la-pedrera-gaudi-barcelona-dosde-publishing.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe roof terrace of La Pedrera<\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/qa-dosde.qamoon.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/20-015-00_C07.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe best way to discover La Pedrera<\/h2>\n
![\"Book](\"https:\/\/qa-dosde.qamoon.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cover-back-la-pedrera-casa-mila-gaudi-english-book-dosde-publishing_978-84-15818-34-2_20-015-01_B11.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What is La Pedrera? Located on Passeig de Gr\u00e0cia, in the heart of the Barcelona Eixample, La Pedrera is Gaud\u00ed’s last residential apartment building, constructed between 1906 and 1912, coinciding with the architect’s mature period, which was inspired by nature’s shapes and which gave rise to one of the most thought-provoking and unique works of … Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barcelona"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n