CASA MILÀ –COMMONLY KNOWN TO BARCELONANS AS LA PEDRERA (THE QUARRY)- IS WITHOUT DOUBT ONE OF THE MOST FREQUENTLY VISITED AND PHOTOGRAPHED BUILDINGS IN THE CITY. HOWEVER, EVEN IF IT MAY BE THE MOST EMBLEMATIC WORK OF ANTONI GAUDÍ’S CIVIL ARCHITECTURE, IT WAS RIDICULED IN ITS DAY FOR THE AUDACITY OF ITS SHAPES. THESE DAYS, EVEN THE FURNITURE, WHICH THE ARCHITECT DESIGNED FOR THE APARTMENTS, IS THE OBJECT OF RE-EDITIONS.

Gaudí for the Five Senses
Casa Milà (commissioned by Pere Milà i Camps and his wealthy wife, Roser Segimon i Artells) was misunderstood in its day, even in artistic and intellectual circles. On January 4th 1912, when La Pedrera works were finished, the famous cartoonist Picarol published a strip on the construction work in the satirical newspaper L’Esquella de la Torratxa. The drawing was called Garage for Zeppelins and it showed the building converted into an airship parking lot. But decades later Gaudí’s genius eventually came out triumphant. In the 1950s, based on rationalism, a new generation of architects restored the reputation of Gaudí and his work. The celebration of the International Gaudí Year in 2002, the 150th jubilee of the architect’s birth, finally consolidated the universal transcendence of his entire work. La Pedrera has lived through times of disrepair and times of great change, such as the creation of the rationalist apartments by Francisco José Barba Corsini (1954) or its purchase by the savings bank Caixa Catalunya. Between 1987 and 1996, Caixa Catalunya took on the process of cleaning, remodelling and restoration in order to turn Casa Milà into the headquarters of the Cultural Centre of the its cultural foundation and an emblem of Modernista architecture in the city. Designed as a re-creation of shapes found in nature, nothing goes to waste in this building which, among other notable considerations, has been inscribed on the Unesco World Cultural Heritage list. Visiting this building can take more than one day. From the stairs leading to the first floor exhibition room, to the roof filled with chimneys reminiscent of a mythical army, even the smallest detail, a door handle, the grilles on a window or the parabolic arches in the loft, capture the magic and complex simplicity of Gaudí. It is like a spell that completely entrances all five senses.