Casa Vicens Gaudí

In 1883, Antoni Gaudí, the ink hardly dry on his architecture degree, received a commission to design a summer house in Barcelona, Spain, for Manuel Vicens i Montaner, a stock and currency broker. Completed in 1885, the four-story Casa Vicens was Gaudí’s first significant work and one of the earliest examples of Art Nouveau architecture—a riot of contrasting colors and patterns, bearing the seeds of Gaudí’s unique blend of Moorish, Neoclassical, and organic forms.

Vicens died in his house in 1895, and it was later enlarged and divided into four apartments. In 2014, MoraBanc, a private bank based in Andorra, bought the property with the goal of returning it to its original state and converting it into a museum and exhibition space. On Nov. 16 of this year, after nearly 130 years as a private residence, Casa Vicens Gaudí opened to the public, thanks to an extensive renovation overseen by two local architecture firms, Martínez Lapeña - Torres Arquitectos and David Architecture Workshop Office.

Making dramatic changes to a Gaudí building is an intimidating prospect; fortunately, the architects have done it before, with a major 1992 renovation of Gaudí’s Park Güell, also in Barcelona. “We approached Casa Vicens with respect, but also with a healthy and independent distance,” says Elías Torres, a partner with Martínez Lapeña - Torres Arquitectos. “There is a moment in the process when the important thing is to act with the most accuracy and without fear.”

The building was structurally sound, but needed significant restoration. The conversion to apartments had involved removing Gaudí’s original staircase, which the architects replaced, sans decoration; they also added an elevator. Interior partition walls came out, and new electrical work, air conditioning, restrooms, and a café went in. The architects also removed two wings that had been tacked on in 1935 and 1964, making room for an expanded garden.

Though Casa Vicens was never exactly forgotten—in 2005 UNESCO named it, in combination with six other Gaudí works in or near Barcelona, as a World Heritage site—its place in art history as a demonstration of pre-modernist, orientalist design had been literally covered over by decades of paint and neglect. The architects and MoraBanc researched the original paint and glazed-ceramic schemes of individual rooms, and then meticulously restored them.

Perhaps the biggest challenge, says Mercedes Mora, who oversaw the project for her family’s bank, was the smoking room on the first floor. Gaudí had filled the space with multicolored plaster mocárabes on the ceiling and papier-mâché tiles on the walls, a once-popular decorative element perfected by lithographer Hermenegildo Miralles. “This is one of the few buildings from that time that still has original pieces made using this technique, which began and reached its peak during the Modernism movement,” she says.

The surfaces had been painted over, so the restorers first had to determine what lay beneath by drilling small test holes around the room. “The team discovered some surprising colors and restored the blue background, various tones of green on the leaves, and the golden highlights,” Mora says. And now, thanks to two years of intense restoration, the rest of the world can see the uncovered details, too.

--Project Credits
Project: Casa Vicens Gaudí
Client: Casa Vicens Gaudí
Developer: UTE Calaf Constructora and AMC5
Architects: Martínez Lapeña - Torres Arquitectos, Barcelona, Spain . José Antonio Martínez Lapeña, Elías Torres (partners), Adrià Orriols (project and site supervision); Carla Coromina, David Costa, Roger Panadès, Galo Pujana, and Jennifer Vera (office team); David Architecture Workshop Office, Barcelona, Spain . David García Martínez (founding architect), Violeta Linares, Jesús Amengual, Laura Pérez, Pablo Navas, Cristina Sarandeses, Aina Tugores, Silvia Ripoll, Aina Santesmasses, Diana Jiménez, and Carlos Tugores (office team)
Structural Engineer: Static Ingeniería
Mechanical Engineer: Consulting Oficina Tècnica Lluís J. Duart
Construction Site Management: Dalmau-Morros Tècnics
Restoration: Restauracions Policromia
Graphic Design: Mucho
Size: 1,239 square meters (13,336 square feet)
Cost: €3.8 million ($4.5 million)