Question

do a comparative essay between Casa Mila and Casa Batllo of the architect Antoni Gaudi. In this essay you are to look at the similarities and differences of architectural design principles applied. You are to identify at least four principles and to justify their application by the architect through the two buildings.

Answer 1

Casa mila(La pedrera) of the architect Antoni Gaudi:

Casa Mila (La Pedrera) is regarded as Antoni gaudi most iconic work of civic architecture due its constructional and functional innovations, as well as its ornamental and decorative solutions, which broke with the architectural styles of his day.

For Gaudi, La Pedrera represented the most advanced approach to a building on a chamfered street corner in the Eixample in Barcelona. It consists of two blocks of apartments, each with its own entrance, structured around two large interconnected courtyards with ramps down to the garage for vehicles.

FACADE

Curtain wall

The facade of La Pedrera is not a structural element: rather than serving the traditional function of load-bearing wall, it is instead a curtain wall. The blocks of stone (numbering more than 6,000) are connected to the structure by metal components, thereby making the large windows in the frontage possible.

There are three types of stone in the façade: limestone from the Garraf in the lower parts and in some of the structural elements; stone from Vilafranca dele Penedes for the bulk of the facade and limestone from Ulldecona for some of the features.

The wrought ironwork: the ingenious and sophisticated use of iron

The complex and expressive wrought-iron grilles of the 32 balconies of La Pedrera were made using scrap iron sheets, bars and chains in an unusual but remarkably effective accumulation that complements the architecture and provides a decorative element. They are regarded as the forerunners of the abstract sculpture of the 20th century.

The photograph shows a detail of the first iron railing of what was the show apartment, flat 2n 2a on the second floor above the Milà’s main residence. Gaudi personally oversaw the making of this grille in the workshops of the Badia brothers in Barcelona. The various parts of the grilles are joined together by screws and rivets.

The wrought-ironwork: the entrance doors

Antoni Gaudi’s intention with these doors was to facilitate entry into the buildng and exit out to the street for both vehicles and people. Large sheets of glass were unavailable at the time, so Gaudi fitted together a series of panes in irregular shapes, based on animals and plants, creating an area of small, protected pieces of glass in the lower part (where they are at greater risk of being broken) and larger, more luminous pieces at the top.

This structure acts as a grille and as a door that can be opened in the middle to allow vehicles to pass through, and to the sides for people on foot.

The wrought-ironwork: the grilles of the daylight-basements

The daylight basements of Casa Mila have large openings that were provided with iron grilles for protection. The grille shown in the photograph is believed to be Gaudi’s original design. For budgetary reasons, the other grilles were mass-produced to the same design, with vertical ribbons of metal adapted to fit the available space.

The 29 grilles of the daylight basements were gradually removed as the coal stores were converted into commercial premises. Nowadays, four of these grilles are held in two collections: one in the MoMA in New York, and the other three at the Gaudi House Museum.

The wall paintings: entrance halls

The Symbolist painter Aleix Clapes (1850 - 1920) was commissioned to oversee the pictorial decoration of Casa Mila (La Pedrera). The pictorial design for the entrance halls consisted of paintings that reproduced tapestries on mythological themes in the National Heritage Collection. In the Carrer de Provenince entrance hall, a number of different tapestries are combined without clearly defined edges or borders in the same space. Greater freedom in the interpretation can be perceived in these works. On one side, we have the cardinal sins of wrath and gluttony; and on the other, the Heroes of the Trojan War and the Adventures of Telemachus series, both inspired by passages in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

One notable difference between the original tapestries and these reproductions is the trompe- l'oeil on the adjacent wall and the ceiling of the staircase linking the Passeig de Gracia entrance hall and the main floor.

This pictorial effect creates the illusion that we are going up or down a staircase floating alongside a garden and that this staircase is supported by columns on either side.

APARTMENTS: Open plan

One of Gaudi’s most ingenious solutions is the structural system of pillars made of stone, brick or iron which, by eliminating the need for load-bearing walls, made it possible for him to freely distribute the interior space of the floors of apartments.

Distribution of a floor of apartments

The distribution of a typical floor is notable for its irregular geometry and its well-defined internal organisation, intended to make the most of the south-facing main facade.

People circulate within the building by using the well-lit, wide corridors around the courtyards. The lifts provide direct access to the entrance of the flats on each floor. Each floor is divided into four apartments in such a way that each one has a section of the main facade.

The ceilings

The ceilings inside the apartments of Casa Mila are very varied: some are in high relief; others bear inscriptions and even poems. All of them are intended to continue the undulating rhythms of the facade.

Gaudi’s designs seem to wish to express the matter and forces of nature that have yielded to spontaneity. At the same time, they combine culture and tradition in the context of Modernisme.

The decorative motifs and shapes constitute a new plastic art never seen before despite the fact that it grew out of classical geometrical ornamental forms, from the simple circumference and its transformation into an ellipse to various spirals and volutes.

Casa Batllo of the architect Antoni Gaudi:

The inspiring imagination of Antoni Gaudi undoubtedly reveals itself in one of his most poetic and artistic designs for a building, Casa Batlló. His synthesis of animal shapes, vine-like curves, hints of bone and skeleton, and his use of lustrous colored bits of glazed ceramic and glass create a masterpiece that will forever astonish its observers. His style encompasses all that defines the Art Nouveau, a School of French decorative artists from the 1890s who took influence from sinuous shapes in plants and nature.

He explored his interests in flowing shapes, patterns and colors in the Casa Batllo, which was designed for the wealthy cotton baron Josep Batllo as a jolting contradiction to the rigid forms that surround it.

The front facade reveals striking textures, colors, and imagery that work together to conjure thoughts of fairytales and phantasmal dreams. The larger sculptural pieces that create the boundaries of the balconies and that frame the entrance resemble bones, suggesting a septum, eyebrows or clavicles, which keep to the anthropomorphic tone. As eyes wander up to the top of Casa Batlló, they are greeted by the dominating reptillian surface of the roof.

The dramatic humpback mound "is clad on one side by armour plating resembling an armadillo's, while on the other side it is covered with trancedis fragments producing a subtle white-into-orange sheen.

The spine is dotted with bulbous green and blue vertebrae, suggesting that these might be organisms in themselves, while the flowing lines where roof meets facade are edged with other armatures of saurian bone and joint."

The creaturesque resemblance is made strikingly apparent at night, when the facade glows and haunts with it's bone-like skeletal structures and dramatic shadows. Antoni Gaudí worked closely with a textile manufacturer named Josep Maria Jujol who assisted primarily in the ornamentation and use of color on the surface treatments.

As can always be anticipated in the works of Gaudi, there is a recurring religious imagery which is achieved almost subliminally. There are embedded and semi-concealed religious images and texts planted in the upper levels of the building, as well as in the small details around the facade.

The very tip of the tower sits one of Gaudi's signature pieces, a four-pointed transverse cross. Gill suggests that the goal was to point out that "religion can embrace humour, fantasy and the absurd." It can also be interpreted as a message to God that he was building in His name, instead of for fame or glorification of wealth.

Gaudi's state of the art use of central heating, uncommon in the time and place of Barcelona, made air vents and chimneys necessary. He took this as yet another place to expand his talents and imaginations, adding to the fairytale structure and appearance of Casa Batllo. One of the most intriguing aspects of these chimneys are their 45-degree angle departure from the roof before they become vertical.

The interior is perhaps even more detailed and designed, a continuation of the sinuous flowing walls and edges as well as color manipulation and incredible varying of the scale.

The interior is just as alive as it appears from the street; the knobbly spine lines the staircase through flowing wall forms of scale-like surfaces. The winding and twisting exhibited in the decorative features of doors, frames, peepholes, moldings and screens are all interpretations of the natural forms that inspired Gaudí's art nouveau style.

CASA MILA VS CASA BATLLO:

Many people love the colourful ornate front of Casa Batllo.. It is full of eye catching tiles that makes the house impossible to miss when strolling past. With it’s bone like balconies and a curvy reptile roof, this facade is usually preferred to that of La Pedrera. While Casa Batlló certainly followed the fashions of the time, it is not strictly 100 percent Gaudí. The architect was commissioned to remodel this 1870’s building in keeping with the Art Nouveau fashion of the day.

The interior:

Entrances, courtyards and patios

In both houses you see the inside patio, the stairway, an individual apartment, the attic and the roof terrace. I prefer the entrance way to Casa Batllo by far. It is like a entering a jewellery box and the carved wooden staircase up to the apartment will blow you away. If you are a tile person the interior patio is all about the decoration. It is beautifully done in shades of blue giving the atmosphere of submergence in the ocean depths.

Casa Mila’s entrance way starts at a modern looking ticket office where you put your belongings through a security check. But once through to the first patio you can breathe a sigh of relief as it is round and spacious, catering for larger numbers. While the patios are a lot plainer inside, there are some eye catching painted frescoes around.

Living quarters

The living quarters of Casa Batllo are not furnished and a lot of rooms (kitchen, servants quarters and bathroom) are missing so it lacks that sense of a real lived in apartment. Despite this, some people do prefer the interior. Sculpted wooden doors, colourful stained glass windows and the rounded plaster ceilings transport guests to a fairy wonderland. The family terrace is open to visitors affording a view of the back part of the house, a feature which is not available in Casa Mila.

La Pedrera apartment is furnished, giving a great insight how people lived and decorated their abodes in this era. Wandering from room to room disorientates most as the layout follows the curve of the round patio which is so unusual in any construction. Subtle and brilliant, it does however miss that immediate first impression, wow factor of Casa Batllo.

The attic

The white plastered, ribbed walls of the attic in Casa Batllo makes you feel the nick name house of bones is very fitting for this dwelling. In parts it can be narrow and if crowded a bit claustrophobic, but this impressive passageway must be walked to arrive to the roof terrace.

Casa Mila’s loft has bare ribbed walls and ceilings made from red brick, immediately creating a warm and relaxed atmosphere. It’s an enormous space and is dotted with small windows so one does not feel boxed in or stuffy. Excellent models, videos, charts, furniture and more gives the visitor an fantastic insight to all of Gaudi’s work, a display that Casa Batllo lacks.

The roof terrace

The terrace of Casa Batllo is not as promising as you might think by looking at the roof from below. It houses chimneys, the sky light and the water storage room.

The terrace of Casa Mila is one of the most magical places in Barcelona and a sculptural masterpiece. Stairwells, ventilation towers and chimneys are the 3 main elements that combine to make a highly original and wonderful space. It is not a flat surface (like casa Batllo) and you will be climbing up and downstairs to see the sights. As a plus, you can actually enjoy beautiful views of Barcelona from La Pedrera’s roof terrace. The only disadvantage of La Pedrera’s roof terrace compared to Casa Batlló’s is that it will be closed when it rains.