Statement
My favourite building is Gaudi's Casa Mila, which I visited in 2014. I find its biomorphic form and the sculptural ambiguity of its chimneys particularly interesting and the consistent allusion to nature throughout the building makes it very engaging on an experiential level. Nature is referenced in an obvious way through the naturalistic wrought iron exterior details but also more implicitly in the arrangement of the building's two courtyards, which in plan view recall a microscopic view of the xylem and phloem structures in a plant stem. I find Gaudi's consideration of context interesting. Casa Mila is situated in the Eixample district of Barcelona which was a new development based on a grid layout, with a handful of architects responsible for the vast majority of buildings in the area. Thus aesthetically it has a very uniform character. Despite this, Gaudi has managed to create a radical structure that subverts this regularity but also complements it in an intriguing w...
