Casa Vicens in Barcelona became a museum and is open to tourists

• Vicens House in Barcelona became a museum and is open to tourists

The creative legacy of Antoni Gaudí has ​​long been a hallmark of Barcelona. Sagrada Familia, Güell Palace, Casa Mila - these and other buildings are well known all over the world. However, recently, the tourists coming to Spain, there was one item on the list of obligatory to view - Casa Vicens - Architectural debut Gaudi.

Opening of the first Gaudí for tourist visits - a landmark event. The building was built over 130 years ago, but it remained in private ownership until recently. The house was built as a summer residence for the wealthy family of Manuel Vicenç in the period from 1883 to 1885. The owners of the house had its own factory for the production of bricks and tiles.

Designing homes for Vicenç was the debut of 31-year-old Antonio Gaudi, who still dreamed of building a successful career, so willingly undertook the project. By the time he graduated from a provincial school of architecture, his thesis project was carried out in the spirit of the Victorian era, not unlike most of his predecessors projects in this field.

After graduating from high school in Gaudi leaped ambitions, and he began searching for his own style, critics see in his early projects, the impact of the Spanish-Arabian style Mudejar: this geometric asymmetry, and love for ceramic parts, and the combination of rough stone and metal, and of course, decorating abstract ornaments inlaid with bricks, which were made at the factory Vicenç. Casa Vicens - one of the first buildings in Barcelona in the style of Art Nouveau.

For many years, the house served as a residence for the three families who lived in it until 1920. After all the building was purchased by one owner. In 2014, a private family bank in Andorra MoraBanc bought a house built by Antonio Gaudi, conducted the necessary restoration work (they won two years), and now the building, built in the XIX century, became public and operates as a museum.

The manager of the project to restore the Vicens House, the first building built by Antonio Gaudi, said: "The mission of Casa Vicens as a house museum - show, looked like the first architectural works of Antoni Gaudi. This will help to understand its unique architectural language and the process of formation of Art Nouveau in Barcelona. "

Casa Vicens in Barcelona, ​​Spain.