Casa Vicens

Casa Vicens is a modernist building in Barcelona, in the Gracia district. A work by Antoni Gaudí, it was the architect's first major project. It was built between 1883 and 1885, although Gaudí drew up the original project between 1878 and 1880. The work belongs to an Orientalist style, close to neo-Mudéjar, though interpreted in a personal way, with the stamp of originality that Gaudí brought to his projects. In this work, he sketched for the first time some of the building techniques that would become common during the flowering of modernism. At the time, it was a much-discussed work that caused a great sensation among the public of the day. When the building was constructed, Gracia was still an independent urban settlement separate from Barcelona, with its own town council and the status of a villa, although it is now a district of the city.

The original project included a large garden alongside the house, but over time the land was divided into plots and sold for the construction of residential buildings. Today, the site is reduced to little more than the house and a small surrounding area. To make the most of the space, Gaudí designed a scheme with three façades, the house joined to an adjoining convent by a shared party wall. In 1925 an extension of the house was planned, and the commission was offered to Gaudí, who declined it. Instead, he proposed one of his disciples, Joan Baptista Serra, who built a new bay following Gaudí's original style, including a new façade, so that the building ended up standing free on all four sides.

This work belongs to Gaudí's Orientalist period (1883–1888), a phase in which the architect produced a series of works with a marked oriental flavour, inspired by the art of the Near and Far East (India, Persia, Japan), as well as by Hispanic Islamic art, chiefly Mudéjar and Nasrid. During this period Gaudí made lavish use of ceramic tile decoration, as well as mitre arches, cartouches in exposed brick and finials in the form of a small temple or dome.

The building was declared a historic-artistic monument in 1969, a property of cultural interest in 1993 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.