The Casa Milà by Gaudí’s was built to be an apartment building. Today, it’s basically a museum to Gaudí’s designs, with a museum-like exhibit hall on the top floor, below the level of the rooftop stuff we saw in yesterday’s post. Plus, there seem to be offices for the bank-funded foundation that runs this money-making enterprise that is “Gaudí” in Barcelona.

The top floor of the building originally was the laundry room. It’s now a museum which has several cases showing drawings/scale models/reproductions of Gaudí’s designs for everything from the balconies to the floor tiles. The cathedral-like arches that decorate this floor, combined with a bit of mood lighting, does give a rather reverential feeling to the exhibits, which was a little odd. Of course, maybe with the audio guide it all was a little more interesting; there was little signage, and the huge screens that seemed to be projecting random scenes from life in Barcelona and the world in the early 20th century just seemed odd, rather than illuminating.

One area had an exhibit of Gaudí’s furniture designs. Apparently the apartments in Casa Milà came furnished, or nearly so. Remember that Gaudí was a “starchitect” – he got to dictate everything in the apartment, from the furnishings used, to the doorknobs, floor patterns, etc. You don’t like his design? Furniture’s not so comfy? Hate the doorknobs? Learn to adjust. You’re living in a place designed by a star.  😉

There was a mention somewhere that the wife of the owner of the building actually changed everything in their apartment right after Gaudí died. Apparently  she wasn’t completely blown away by the aura of living in a place where the furnishings were not to her specifications.

And because the owner’s wife changed everything in their apartment a while back, the sample apartment that you see in Casa Milà isn’t the one the owners lived, but a former rental unit on another floor that’s been restored to give you a sense of what it looked like when it was first built. I’ve included some photos of some of the rooms; it was pretty spacious for an apartment, and I didn’t take photos in every room. I’m terrible at estimating sizes, and there was no information posted anywhere to say how big it was. There were at least 2 bedrooms, maybe 3, plus a small room for the maid (really tiny, no windows), 2 bathrooms, a large kitchen, a good-sized dining room, a parlor/living room, a study for the gentleman of the house, a sewing room for the lady, and both front and back hallways.

Let me put it this way … it was large enough that I think it would have had enough room for our stuff. 😉

Note that I don’t know that all the furnishings are really original, but the idea was that the fixtures and the flooring have been restored to the original styles. But I don’t know think he designed all the furniture you see there – I think that most of it is just typical 1920s Barcelona furniture.

Regarding Gaudí’s interior designs, though, apart from the uncomfortable looking furniture that they had in the museum, there wasn’t anything that looked particularly odd. Even the doorknobs seemed fine. In some ways it was even a little bit of a letdown that the interior wasn’t odder – after all that odd stuff outside, I was expecting something particular, I guess.

BTW, I’ve included a photo from the museum exhibit with the original ceramic floor tiles that Gaudí designed in general for his buildings. I was amused by how the sign next to them says “don’t touch” – I understand that these particular ones are being preserved as “art” now, but they were originally floor tiles, not artwork to hang on a wall.

Now, I don’t know if there’s a connection, but the sidewalk of the street that we walked up to get to the Casa Milà is lined with ceramic tiles of a very similar design. I don’t know for sure that the ones in the sidewalk are actually based on designs by Gaudí, but they sure looked similar to the ones in the museum. I liked the tiles in the museum, that we paid top dollar to see, but I like the ones that we saw while walking down the street even more.

Now, they do say that the best things in life are free.  And as far as I’m concerned, that was certainly true when it came to Gaudí. 😉