Description
Casa Milà, known as La Pedrera, is the apartment building on Barcelona's Passeig de Gràcia whose wavy stone front looks like a cliff eaten away by the sea. It was the last private house Antoni Gaudí designed, built from 1906 to 1912, and UNESCO lists it as a World Heritage Site.
Barcelona laughed at it. Cartoonists drew it as an Easter cake, and the city gave it the mocking nickname that stuck, La Pedrera: "the stone quarry". The city also stopped the work over a pillar on the sidewalk and fined the owners for being too tall.
Its owners were Pere Milà, a developer with a flamboyant life, and his wife Roser Segimon, the rich widow of a coffee planter. Gaudí and Segimon clashed over everything. When she said there was no straight wall for her piano, he is said to have replied: "So play the violin."
Behind the provocation lay a bold idea. The wavy limestone façade holds itself up, with no load-bearing walls inside, so every floor could be laid out freely. Twisting wrought-iron balconies and large windows give the front its rhythm.
The roof is the highlight. The poet Pere Gimferrer called it the "garden of warriors": skylights, staircase exits and 28 chimneys, covered in broken marble and tile, stand like helmeted sentinels over the city.
Below it, the attic holds a forest of brick arches, once the laundry and drying rooms, that insulated the building and shaped the roof. The two courtyards are painted and open to the sky, bringing light to every floor.
The building has an underground garage, a novelty in the age of the first cars. Gaudí also placed elevators only on every other floor, so that neighbors would meet on the stairs. The main floor shows furniture he designed himself.
The house did not get everything planned: after the anticlerical riots of 1909, Milà gave up the statue of the Virgin meant for the top. Over the decades it held a bingo hall, an academy and offices, and a restoration begun in 1987 cleaned the façade and brought back many of its colors.
Don't miss
• The roof and its chimneys.
• The attic arches.
• The courtyards.
• The furniture on the main floor.
Did you know?
• One chimney is topped with bottle glass, said to come from the party after the inauguration.
• Jack Nicholson shot a scene on the roof in Antonioni's The Passenger.
• The rooftop's stepped skylights hide the building's water tanks, some shaped like snails.
Barcelona laughed at it. Cartoonists drew it as an Easter cake, and the city gave it the mocking nickname that stuck, La Pedrera: "the stone quarry". The city also stopped the work over a pillar on the sidewalk and fined the owners for being too tall.
Its owners were Pere Milà, a developer with a flamboyant life, and his wife Roser Segimon, the rich widow of a coffee planter. Gaudí and Segimon clashed over everything. When she said there was no straight wall for her piano, he is said to have replied: "So play the violin."
Behind the provocation lay a bold idea. The wavy limestone façade holds itself up, with no load-bearing walls inside, so every floor could be laid out freely. Twisting wrought-iron balconies and large windows give the front its rhythm.
The roof is the highlight. The poet Pere Gimferrer called it the "garden of warriors": skylights, staircase exits and 28 chimneys, covered in broken marble and tile, stand like helmeted sentinels over the city.
Below it, the attic holds a forest of brick arches, once the laundry and drying rooms, that insulated the building and shaped the roof. The two courtyards are painted and open to the sky, bringing light to every floor.
The building has an underground garage, a novelty in the age of the first cars. Gaudí also placed elevators only on every other floor, so that neighbors would meet on the stairs. The main floor shows furniture he designed himself.
The house did not get everything planned: after the anticlerical riots of 1909, Milà gave up the statue of the Virgin meant for the top. Over the decades it held a bingo hall, an academy and offices, and a restoration begun in 1987 cleaned the façade and brought back many of its colors.
Don't miss
• The roof and its chimneys.
• The attic arches.
• The courtyards.
• The furniture on the main floor.
Did you know?
• One chimney is topped with bottle glass, said to come from the party after the inauguration.
• Jack Nicholson shot a scene on the roof in Antonioni's The Passenger.
• The rooftop's stepped skylights hide the building's water tanks, some shaped like snails.