Gaudi – master of exterior tile decoration (and a myth exposed)

Mention Gaudi, and one instantly thinks of the Sagrada Familia, that magnificent unfinished church in Barcelona. However, the Casa Vicens, described in the Telegraph last year as “a delightful surprise: a Moorish palace that might have been dropped in on a magic carpet”, was the first private house to be designed by Gaudi, and it has recently been the subject of a €4.5 million restoration project.  Who could resist wanting to know more about it?

Gaudi had been qualified only 5 years as an architect when he was hired in 1883  by a tile manufacturer, Don Manuel Vicens Montaner to design a summer house in Gracia, then a suburb of Barcelona. And of course it is the beautiful tiled façades of Casa Vicens in amongst the offices and apartment blocks now surrounding it which catch the breath. With a limited colour palette of green, white and cream, it has a composition of horizontal lines on the lower part and vertical lines on the upper part. How amazing that it was that the owner of a ceramic tile factory who commissioned Gaudi to create this wonderful building.

Except that if you visit the Casa Vicens.org website you will find that Manuel Vicens was not a ceramics manufacturer at all, but a professional stockbroker and currency dealer. In fact, the only connection between him and ceramic tiles was that he owed 1,440 pesetas to the Pujol I Bausis ceramic factory. This was the most innovative and important ceramic factory at the time, producing Gaudi Yellow and Gaudi Green according to documents found in the archive, and was thus very likely to be responsible for producing the components of the beautiful glazed façades. And there’s always the matter of that unpaid bill. The myth continues to exist however, depending on which bit of internet research you happen upon first!

Gaudi’s use of tiles for external decoration interestingly included an early method of recycling, and the technique known as trencadis is now almost a Gaudi trademark.  Also known as pique assiette, it is a type of mosaic made from cemented-together tile shards and broken glazed chinaware, together with other small materials like buttons and shells. As an art form, it would be intriguing to see how it could be re-worked to enhance contemporary buildings.  That’s a thought….