Casa Vicens Restoration

Casa Vicens on Carrer de les Carolines in Barcelona's Gràcia district, its red brick and green and white tiled façade topped by small corner turrets, behind a wrought-iron fence of palm-leaf panels and a leafy magnolia tree
Location: Barcelona, SpainType: HouseYear: 2017Architect: Antoni Gaudí + Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos + DAW OfficePhotographer: Pol Viladoms
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Casa Vicens Restoration by Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos and DAW Office in Barcelona

Casa Vicens Restoration is the conservation and conversion of the first house designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, in the Gràcia district of Barcelona, into a house museum. The work was carried out between 2015 and 2017 by two Barcelona practices, Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos and DAW Office, who returned Gaudí’s richly decorated rooms to their original colours and adapted a 1925 extension to hold the stairs, lift, exhibitions and visitor services. After 130 years as a private home, the house opened to the public on 16 November 2017.

Restored dining room of Casa Vicens with built-in carved timber cabinets framing small oil paintings, a tiled fireplace, plant-motif sgraffito on the walls and painted ceramic panels between the ceiling beams

Gaudí’s first house, 1883 to 1885

Gaudí designed the house between 1883 and 1885 as a summer residence for the stockbroker Manuel Vicens, on what was then the edge of the village of Gràcia. It was his first major commission, and it already shows the free mix of sources that would define his work: red brick and rough stone set against bands of green and white ceramic tiles printed with yellow marigolds, Mudéjar and Asian-inspired turrets, cast-iron palm leaves on the gate and fence, and a garden that once had a large waterfall under a parabolic arch. The house was laid out over four floors, with the dining and living rooms on the ground floor, bedrooms above and service rooms in the attic, and its main façade faced south-west over the garden.

Close view of the restored smoking room ceiling at Casa Vicens, papier-mâché mocárabes in deep cobalt blue edged with gold ribs, hanging in honeycomb tiers above a frieze of yellow and green leaves

The 1925 extension and a century of change

In 1925 the Jover family, who had owned the house since 1899, asked the architect Joan Baptista Serra de Martínez, a friend of Gaudí, to extend it so they could live there all year. The house nearly doubled in size and was split into three apartments, one per floor, and Gaudí’s original staircase disappeared. Further changes followed between 1935 and 1964. Casa Vicens was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005, and in 2014 it was bought by the Andorran bank MoraBanc, which set out to open it as a museum.

Long ground-floor room of Casa Vicens with gilded timber beams over painted ceramic panels, a band of ferns in sgraffito above a copper-toned dado, open timber doors to the garden and a polished terrazzo floor

Returning to Gaudí, adapting Serra de Martínez

The architects’ approach was to return Gaudí’s part of the house as closely as possible to its original state while treating the 1925 extension as a heritage layer of its own. Elements added in 1935 and 1964, which had altered the north-west façade, were removed, and nothing was recreated without evidence of how it had looked. The new uses were concentrated in Serra de Martínez’s wing, where a sculptural white staircase and a lift now link every floor and the roof, deliberately contemporary and neutral so that Gaudí’s interiors remain the focus.

Corner of the Casa Vicens dining room with carved timber display cabinets and oil paintings of ships and landscapes, opening to the new white staircase of the museum beyond

The dining room, the porch and the smoking room

Specialist restorers worked on wood, ceramics, metal, murals, painted fabric and stone. In the dining room they cleaned and repaired the built-in cabinetry, 32 small oil paintings by Francesc Torrescassana and the sgraffito of ivy and birds. The enclosed porch, closed off in 1925, was reopened to the garden with its latticework shutters, palm-frond trompe-l’oeil and recovered fountain. In the smoking room, papier-mâché mocárabes long painted cream were returned to their original cobalt blue, green and gold. The panels, patented by the decorator Hermenegildo Miralles, are among the few of their kind to survive from the period, and the restorers found that the ceiling had first been painted to match the walls.

Doorway between the Gaudí house and the new museum stair at Casa Vicens, a red sgraffito wall of foliage beneath carved red and gold beams and a pink marbled dado, with a white stair glimpsed beyond

Upper floors, the rooftop and the garden

On the first floor the bedrooms and bathroom regained their painted ceilings, plant-patterned walls and tiled dados, and a small sitting room keeps its gilded false dome. The attic, once divided into flats, was opened up again under its exposed timber roof beams to house exhibitions. Gaudí’s flat roof, his first accessible rooftop, was weatherproofed and opened to visitors, with a new angular red volume over the top of the stair, while the garden was replanted with palms, creepers and marigolds and given a café.

Room opening onto the enclosed porch at Casa Vicens, sunlight casting lattice shadows across the floor beneath a ceiling of carved and painted red and gold beams, green tiled walls and screened windows beyond

Team and credits

The restoration was designed by José Antonio Martínez Lapeña and Elías Torres of Martínez Lapeña-Torres Arquitectos with David García of DAW Office, and built by the joint venture of Calaf and AMC5, with Policromia leading the restoration of paint, sgraffito, stucco and ceramics, Dalmau Morros Tècnics as building engineers and Static Ingeniería on structures. The museum was conceived by a team led by Joan Abellà, with Marta Antuñano as head curator. The project covers about 1,220 square metres, at a cost of around 3.8 million euros. The photography is by Pol Viladoms.

Casa Vicens Restoration gallery

Casa Vicens on Carrer de les Carolines in Barcelona's Gràcia district, its red brick and green and white tiled façade topped by small corner turrets, behind a wrought-iron fence of palm-leaf panels and a leafy magnolia treeGarden façade of Casa Vicens with the enclosed porch projecting on red brackets, panels of yellow latticework shutters, a chequerboard of green and white tiles and a slim fountain on the porch roof, beside a tall cypressRestored dining room of Casa Vicens with built-in carved timber cabinets framing small oil paintings, a tiled fireplace, plant-motif sgraffito on the walls and painted ceramic panels between the ceiling beamsCorner of Casa Vicens seen from the garden, the porch with its fountain and latticework shutters above a red tiled base, fan palms and a large tree rising against a terracotta-red boundary wallClose view of the restored smoking room ceiling at Casa Vicens, papier-mâché mocárabes in deep cobalt blue edged with gold ribs, hanging in honeycomb tiers above a frieze of yellow and green leavesEnclosed porch of Casa Vicens with a recovered tiled fountain at its centre, walls of geometric yellow latticework and a ceiling painted with palm fronds and sky, framed by green and white tilesLong ground-floor room of Casa Vicens with gilded timber beams over painted ceramic panels, a band of ferns in sgraffito above a copper-toned dado, open timber doors to the garden and a polished terrazzo floorWindow bay inside Casa Vicens with a cushioned bench under a carved terracotta arch of hanging mocárabes, framed by green and white tiles and screened by yellow geometric latticework shuttersCorner of the Casa Vicens dining room with carved timber display cabinets and oil paintings of ships and landscapes, opening to the new white staircase of the museum beyondRestored bathroom at Casa Vicens with a white clawfoot bathtub on dark terrazzo, walls of blue and white chequered tiles under a deep red band, a timber window and a beamed ceiling painted with leavesDoorway between the Gaudí house and the new museum stair at Casa Vicens, a red sgraffito wall of foliage beneath carved red and gold beams and a pink marbled dado, with a white stair glimpsed beyondFirst-floor room of Casa Vicens with a gilded beamed ceiling, walls painted with dark leafy sgraffito above a grey marbled dado, tall timber doors open to a balcony and a terrazzo floor with a patterned borderRoom opening onto the enclosed porch at Casa Vicens, sunlight casting lattice shadows across the floor beneath a ceiling of carved and painted red and gold beams, green tiled walls and screened windows beyondRestored bedroom at Casa Vicens with walls of dark green fern sgraffito above a pale grey marbled dado, a timber door with carved panels and a gilded beamed ceiling over a terrazzo floorSide of Casa Vicens with a turret of red brick and green and white tiles, a new stone stair descending to the garden level beside the iron palm-leaf fence and an overhanging treeWrought-iron railing of interlocking circles studded with black cast-iron flowers in front of a red brick turret and chequered green, white and pink ceramic tiles at Casa VicensRestored rooftop of Casa Vicens with pitched tile roofs and two small tiled turrets beside an angular new terracotta-red volume housing the top of the stair, surrounded by apartment blocks under a blue skyNew white faceted staircase in the 1925 extension of Casa Vicens, oak treads rising past angled walls and a curving white balustrade lit by a row of small round lights

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