La Pedrera
After we wrapped up in Casa Batllo, we headed
over to La Pedrera or Casa Mila. Jason had bought two tickets to La Pedrera, one for a
day time tour and one for a guided night time tour.
I’ll start with the day time tour. We again bought a specific entry time for
this. We were there late afternoon and
it was relatively quiet. For this
apartment complex, you start in the top floor, move out to the roof, and head
down to an example apartment.
The family that owned this building lived on the second
floor (1 floor in Spain) since this ensured that they did not have to rely on
elevators. Penthouses were not popular
in the 1910s! Jason’s favorite fun fact
is that they had the first underground parking structure in Spain! Gaudi was moving towards the combination of
nature and Catholic religion in his designs.
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| Entrance to the "penthouse" on the second floor |
You have the option to take the stairs up, but we definitely
rode up the elevator!
The upstairs looked a lot like the Casa Batllo. It was where the servants would do a lot of
their utility work like laundry. It also looked like a rib cage.
They
use the space as a prep museum. I liked
the model of the building. It was a
great chance to see the whole roof and building.
This museum also highlighted some of the other projects that
Gaudi worked on.
The roof was fascinating.
It reminded me of the Buddhist zen garden we saw in Kyoto in that the
arrangement doesn’t completely make sense.
We did learn in the evening session that the roof was never completed,
which can partly account for the lack of rationale plan for the roof. Some turrets are much more ornate. He included direct references to the catholic
religion and the Virgin Mary.
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| Framed view of Gaudi's other project, La Sagrada Familia |
The apartments were much more traditional than the ones at
Casa Batllo. They did, however, furnish
them in the manner they probably would at the time. The apartments were rather modern for the
time with showers, toilets, lighting and other modern conveniences, like an
en-suite master bathroom. I loved how
the kitchen was completely full of built-ins. No photos allowed inside!
When we came back at the evening, it is really important to
be prompt. Our guide was fantastic. He was a great mix of short quippy stories
with strong facts and answers to questions about Gaudi’s style. He gave us the details about the owners who
hired Gaudi – and that they were really probably not talking to Gaudi at the
end! They even sued him! …which is why the roof was unfinished! La Pedrera as a nickname for the building was
not a compliment. It literally means the
stone mine, the rock quarry.
Then we headed to the roof.
They did a light show on the roof top starting at creation through
modern day. The light show is ~15-20
minutes. We were lucky enough that there
was no group after us. We were able to linger
on the roof and take pictures of the view.
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| La Sagrada Familia |
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| Light show |
We really enjoyed our double stop at La Pedrera. And mad props to our tour guide in the
evening. He truly was fantastic.
Times visited: 2
Time in museum: 2 hrs and 1.5 hrs
Overall: A-
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