The roof of Casa Milà: shapes, details and landscapes
The project aims at investigating deeply the Gaudì's work on the roof of Casa Milà, capturing shapes to capture the soul of this house and his creator.
Casa Milà, popularly known as La Pedrera or "open quarry", a reference to its unconventional rough-hewn appearance, is a modernist building in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was the last private residence designed by architect Antoni Gaudí and was built between 1906 and 1910.
The building was commissioned in 1906 by businessman Pere Milà and his wife Roser Segimon. At the time, it was controversial because of its undulating stone facade, twisting wrought iron balconies and windows designed by Josep Maria Jujol. Several structural innovations include a self-supporting stone front, columns and floors free of load-bearing walls, an underground garage and sculptural elements on the roof.
In 1984, it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is currently the headquarters of the Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera which manages exhibitions and other activities at Casa Milà.
The work of Gaudí on the rooftop of La Pedrera brought his experience at Palau Güell together with solutions that were clearly more innovative – this time creating shapes and volumes with more body, more prominence, and less polychromasia.
On the rooftop there are six skylights/staircase exits (four of which were covered with broken pottery and some that ended in a double cross typical of Gaudí), twenty-eight chimneys in several groupings, two half-hidden vents whose function is to renew the air in the building, and four domes that discharged to the facade. The staircases also house the water tanks; some of which are snail-shaped.
The stepped roof of La Pedrera, called "the garden of warriors" by the poet Pere Gimferrer because the chimneys appear to be protecting the skylights, has undergone a radical restoration, removing chimneys added in interventions after Gaudí, television antennas, and other elements that degraded the space. The restoration brought back the splendor to the chimneys and the skylights that were covered with fragments of marble and broken Valencia tiles. One of the chimneys was topped with glass pieces – it was said that Gaudí did that the day after the inauguration of the building, taking advantage of the empty bottles from the party. It was restored with the bases of champagne bottles from the early twentieth century. The repair work has enabled the restoration of the original impact of the overhangs made of stone from Ulldecona with fragments of tiles. This whole set is more colorful than the facade, although here the creamy tones are dominant. © Wikipedia
