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| Borja Penalba & Maria del Mar Bonet in concert |
Today, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have gone to La Pedrera to listen to Maria del Mar Bonet (Palma, 1947) and Borja Penalba (València, 1975) who have presented a Christmas Concert full of popular Catalan songs and old and new hits of these two magnificent artists.
Claire and The Grandma have been following the last tour of these artists that is arriving to its end. Bonet and Penalba have been celebrating the 50th anniversary of the musical career of the Majorcan artist, who is a world reference in folk music.
Visiting La Pedrera is an incredible experience that you must live at least once in your life. Claire and The Grandma know this building very well and they want to share its history, totally related with the history of the city of Barcelona and the life of Antoni Gaudí, without any kind of doubt, one of the greatest geniuses of architecture.
More information: Maria del Mar Bonet
Casa Milà, popularly known as La Pedrera or The stone quarry, a reference to its unconventional rough-hewn appearance, is a modernist building in Barcelona, Catalonia. It was the last private residence designed by architect Antoni Gaudí and was built between 1906 and 1912.
The building was commissioned in 1906 by Pere Milà and his wife Roser Segimon. At the time, it was controversial because of its undulating stone facade, twisting wrought iron balconies and designed by Josep Maria Jujol. Several structural innovations include a self-supporting stone façade, and a free-plan floor, underground garage and the spectacular terrace on the roof.
In 1984, it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Since 2013 it has been the headquarters of the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera which manages the visit to the building, exhibitions and other cultural and educative activities at Casa Milà.
Casa Milà was built for Roser Segimon and her husband Pere Milà. Roser Segimon was the wealthy widow of Josep Guardiola, an Indiano or Americano, or former colonist returned from South America, had made his fortune with a coffee plantation in Guatemala. Her second husband, Pere Milà was a developer known for his flamboyant lifestyle.
In 1905, Milà and
Segimón married and on June 9, Roser Segimón bought a house with garden
which occupied an area of 1,835 square meters, located on Paseo de
Gracia, 92. In September, they commissioned Gaudí for building them a
new house with the idea of living in the main floor and renting out the
rest of the apartments. On February 2, 1906, the project was presented
to the Barcelona City Council and the works began, demolishing the
pre-existing building instead of reforming it, as in the case of the
Casa Batlló.
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| Claire & The Grandma in La Pedrera |
The building was completed in December 1910 and the owner asked Gaudí to make a certificate to inhabit the main floor, which the City Council authorized in October 1911, and the couple moved in.
On October 31, 1912, Gaudí issued the certificate stating that, in accordance with his plans and his direction, the work had been completed and the whole house was ready to be rented.
Gaudí, a Catholic and a devotee of the Virgin Mary, planned for the Casa Milà to be a spiritual symbol. Overt religious elements include an excerpt from the Rosary on the cornice and planned statues of Mary, specifically Our Lady of the Rosary, and two archangels, St. Michael and St. Gabriel. However, the Casa Milà was not built entirely to Gaudí's specifications. The local government ordered the demolition of elements that exceeded the height standard for the city, and fined the Milàs for many infractions of building codes.
After Setmana Tràgica (Tragic Week), an outbreak of anticlericalism in the city, Milà prudently decided to forgo the religious statues. Gaudí contemplated abandoning the project but a priest persuaded him to continue.
Gaudí's work was designated a historic and artistic monument on July 24, 1969.
Casa Milà was in poor condition in the early 1980s. It had been painted a dreary brown and many of its interior color schemes had been abandoned or allowed to deteriorate, but it has been restored since and many of the original colors revived.
More information: La Pedrera
In 1984 the building became part of a World Heritage Site encompassing some of Gaudí's works.
The Barcelonan city council tried to rent the main floor as an office for the 1992 Olympic bid. Finally, the day before Christmas 1986, Caixa Catalunya bought La Pedrera. On February 19, 1987, urgently needed work began on the restoration and cleaning of the façade.
Casa Milà is characterized by its self-supporting stone facade, meaning that it is free of load-bearing walls. The facade connects to the internal structure of each floor by means of curved iron beams surrounding the perimeter of each floor. This construction system allows, on one hand, large openings in the facade which give light to the homes, and on the other, free structuring of the different levels, so that internal walls can be added and demolished without affecting the stability of the building. This allows the owners to change their minds at will and to modify, without problems, the interior layout of the homes.
The facade is composed of large blocks of limestone from the Garraf Massif on the first floor and from the Vilafranca quarry for the higher levels. The blocks were cut to follow the plot of the projection of the model, then raised to their location and adjusted to align in a continuous curve to the pieces around them.
Viewed from the outside the building has three parts: the main body of the six-storey blocks with winding stone floors, two floors set a block back with a different curve, similar to waves, a smoother texture and whiter color, and with small holes that look like embrasures, and finally the body of the roof.
Gaudí's original facade had some of its lower-level ironwork removed. In 1928, the tailor Mosella opened the first store in La Pedrera, and he eliminated the bars. This did not concern anyone, because in the middle of twentieth century, wrought ironwork had little importance. The ironwork was lost until a few years later, when Americans donated one of them to the MoMa, where it is on display.
With restoration initiatives launched in 1987, the facade was rejoined to some pieces of stone that had fallen. In order to respect the fidelity of the original, material was obtained from Vilafranca quarry, even though by then it was no longer operating.
More information: Portal Gaudí
Jo he cantat en nom vostro, la vostra veu és la mia.
I have sung in your name, your voice is mine.
Maria del Mar Bonet
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