Casa Calvet origins 

Often sited as Gaudi’s most ‘normal’ building, site restrictions and the general ‘tone’ of the neighbourhood had a marked effect on the overall design. It is typical of buildings of this era both in floor plan and style.

There is the apartment building with a shop and offices on the ground floor and basements, the owner’s residence on the main floor (the first floor), and rental apartments on the upper floors. The Casa Calvet is the only Gaudí residential building that currently maintains its intended use.

classical design

Its symmetry, balance and orderly rhythm are unusual for Gaudí’s works. However, the curves and double gable at the top, the projecting oriel at the entrance, almost baroque in its drama, and isolated witty details are modernista elements.

Gaudí also designed the furnishings for the main floor of the house and the owners’ business office: a collection of chairs, tables, and various pieces of furniture made of oak with an organic design where form, structure, and functionality clearly follow the dictates of ergonomics. The door hardware, peepholes, and handles on the doors are also ergonomically designed, and Gaudí designed them using his own molds.

he could not resist

Bulging balconies alternate with smaller, shallower balconies. Mushrooms above the oriel at the centre a nod to the owner’s favourite hobby.

Columns flanking the entrance are in the form of stacked bobbins, alluding to the family business of textile manufacture. Some experts claim that the gallery at ground level is the façade’s most outstanding feature. It is a daring combination of wrought iron and stone in which decorative historical elements such as a cypress, an olive tree, horns of plenty, and the Catalan coat of arms can be discerned.

Among the various symbols scattered across the building’s façade, the famous wrought iron knockers in the shape of a cross stand out. When pressed, they strike the fixed part, shaped like an insect. Gaudi’s religious sentiment is obvious: the cross strikes sin.