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Casa Vicens (1883)

Casa Vicens is located at number 24 of Carrer de les Carolines in the Gracia quarter of Barcelona.

Between 1878 and 1880, Señor Manuel Vicens i Montaner, a stock broker and not a ceramic specialist as had always been believed, commissioned Gaudí to build a house on the lot that he inherited from his mother in 1877.

The land was between the Convento de Monjas de la Caridad de San Vicente de Paül (Convent of the Nuns of Charity of St. Vincent of Paul) and a dead-end alley that runs perpendicular to Carrer de les Carolines. Gaudí built the house against the wall of the convent, producing a large and spacious garden.

For the other side of the garden, Gaudí designed a monumental fountain built with open brickwork, made up of a parabolic arch topped by a passage between columns. The water was stored in two tanks placed above the pillars to each side of the fountain. The fountain was demolished in 1946 due to the sale of that part of the land.

The garden was enclosed by a stucco wall; at the entrance stood the famous iron gate labored in the shape of dwarf palm tree leaves. The heavy leaves are distributed in a square of forged iron "T-profile" beams, the intersections of which are adored with a reproduction in the same material of the buds of the Tagetes Erecta plant: this plant is also represented in the ceramics that decorate the building's facades.

Another piece that was part of the garden was a brick and ceramic faucet that stood between the wall of the house and the wall of Carrer de les Carolines. Since 1983, a smaller-scale replica has been on display in the garden of the Chair of Gaudí Studies (Cátedra Gaudí).


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