Casa Vicens, the first house designed by Antoni Gaudí, opens to the public in Barcelona

The first house designed by the great Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (Reus, 1852-Barcelona, 1926), the Casa Vicens in Barcelona, will open to the public on November 16: this is the first time ever that the building, whose construction began in 1883 (at the time, Gaudí was just 31 years old), will be open to the public. The opening will be permanent: it will therefore be a true museum, with opening hours 10-20. The full-price ticket to visit Casa Vicens will cost 16 euros, the reduced price 14 (for over 65s, students under 25, children and young people aged 7-18, and the disabled), while it will be free for accompanying disabled people and children under seven. The website is also already ready: at casavicens.org you can find all the information you need to organize your visit, as well as historical and artistic insights into the building, and an updated blog.

The building of Casa Vicens, as anticipated, began in 1883, and finished in 1885: it was to be the summer residence of the Vicens family. Client was Manel Vicens i Montaner, who was a stock broker by trade, and who was the first to believe in the genius of Antoni Gaudí. The current building, however, is the result of later remodeling, since Gaudí’s original construction was enlarged in 1925 to a design by Joan Baptista Serra de Martínez (the intervention, however, did not go to affect the spaces created by the predecessor). The public will be able to visit the entire house, from the ground floor, where Gaudí envisioned the spaces for daily use (a dining room with furniture and decorations also designed by Gaudí, a porch, a smoking room for playing and relaxing, and a foyer), to the second floor, where the bedrooms were located, decorated with ceramic mosaics typical of Gaudí’s style. One can then also go up to the terrace, also the first one designed by Gaudí.

The Casa Vicens museum, set up on the second floor of the house, houses a permanent collection, through which it will be possible to discover the 130-year history of the residence, as well as the historical, artistic and cultural context in which it was born, and, of course, the genius of Antoni Gaudí: the public will find visual projections showing the Barcelona of the time (including Ildefons Cerdà’s famous urban plan), a reproduction of the Reus manuscript, to which Gaudí entrusted some reflections on architecture, and again documents on the history of Casa Vicens, retraced in all its details. There will also be no shortage of temporary exhibitions: the first will aim to illustrate the vicissitudes of Casa Vicens in an international context in which the figures of Viollet-le-Duc and William Morris were operating. Appointment then in Barcelona from November 16: Gaudí enthusiasts have one more reason to visit the city.

Pictured: the facade of Casa Vicens. Courtesy Casa Vicens

Casa Vicens, the first house designed by Antoni Gaudí, opens to the public in Barcelona

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