Casa Vicens: general view

In 1883, Manel Vicens i Montaner, a stock and currency broker, entrusted the young architect with designing his summer garden home in the former village of Gràcia. It is his first masterpiece and one of the first buildings to kick off the Modernisme movement in Catalonia.

Gaud�’s first important buildings reveal an imaginative experimentation with ornament and construction, exploiting local building techniques, materials, and craftsmanship along with Arts and Crafts principles, albeit at first with an Islamic flavour. His use of azulejos (glazed tiles) in particular helped to revitalize the local art of tile-making.

The three-storey Casa Vicens has walls of red earth-coloured rubble with polychromatic counterchange tile banding. Its tall top storey is set back behind a perforated screen supported by highly original Y-headed colonettes; the turreted brick fa�ade of the garden cascade (destroyed) had a distinct Mud�jar character reminiscent of the 13th-century brick churches of Castile.