El Capricho, in Comillas, Cantabria, one of the most important works of the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí.
The photographer David Cardelús has takes a series of photographs of this building, that in 1883, Máximo Díaz de Quijano, an "Indiano" enriched in America, commissioned to Antoni Gaudí with what would be a summer villa near the palace of Sobrellano del Marqués in Comillas, Cantabria. Villa Quijano will quickly be popularly known as El Capricho (1883-1885).

El Capricho is a contemporary work to Casa Vicens (1883-1888), and both projects are Gaudí's first buildings. These works are going to be fundamental in the evolution of the architect's career, and essential for the study of his career. Both define the style of its first era, which is distinguished, as noted by L.E. Cirlot, by Mudejar, oriental and medieval influences.

The construction of Capricho was directed by Cristóbal Cascante, friend and colleague of Gaudí's promotion, at the same time that he was building the Vicens house in Barcelona.

The exterior of the building is characterized by the use of stone in the lower part of the brick seen adorned with glazed ceramic strips representing sunflowers and leaves in the rest, and the superposition of the curved surface facing the straight.

The work is in a complicated terrain: valley with a steep slope where there was a forest of chestnut trees, whose slopes descend towards the sea, exposed to the north. The answer to all these premises that gave Gaudí was a development of the project horizontally, orienting the facades of the areas destined to the day to the north. Gaudí spoke with two preexistences of the place and incorporated them into his work: a greenhouse and a temple, which he transformed into the central body of the building and the base of the tower-minaret, respectively.

The interior design responds mainly to the necessary program for a single person and with a recreational purpose, since it was a building intended as a holiday residence. It is distributed in three plants. Gaudí distributed the space based on the route of the sun, situating the rooms for morning activities to the south, and the evening ones to the west, while the summer ones are oriented to the north.
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Architect
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Antoni Gaudí i Cornet
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Construction manager
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Cristóbal Cascante
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Dates
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Project.-1883. Finised.- 1885
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Venue
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Barrio Sobrellano, s/n, 39520 Comillas, Cantabria. Spain
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Antoni Gaudí i Cornet, (25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926)  was born in 1852 in Riudoms or Reus, to the coppersmith Francesc Gaudí i Serra (1813–1906) and Antònia Cornet i Bertran (1819–1876). He was the youngest of five children, of whom three survived to adulthood: Rosa (1844–1879), Francesc (1851–1876) and Antoni. Gaudí's family originated in the Auvergne region in southern France. One of his ancestors, Joan Gaudí, a hawker, moved to Catalonia in the 17th century; possible origins of Gaudí's family name include Gaudy or Gaudin.

Gaudí's work was influenced by his passions in life: architecture, nature, and religion. He considered every detail of his creations and integrated into his architecture such crafts as ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork forging and carpentry. He also introduced new techniques in the treatment of materials, such as trencadís which used waste ceramic pieces.

Under the influence of neo-Gothic art and Oriental techniques, Gaudí became part of the Modernista movement which was reaching its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work transcended mainstream Modernisme, culminating in an organic style inspired by natural forms. Gaudí rarely drew detailed plans of his works, instead preferring to create them as three-dimensional scale models and moulding the details as he conceived them. Gaudí's work enjoys global popularity and continuing admiration and study by architects. His masterpiece, the still-incomplete Sagrada Família, is the most-visited monument in Spain.

On 7 June 1926, Gaudí was taking his daily walk to the Sant Felip Neri church for his habitual prayer and confession. While walking along the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes between Girona and Bailén streets, he was struck by a passing tram and lost consciousness. Assumed to be a beggar because of his lack of identity documents and shabby clothing, the unconscious Gaudí did not receive immediate aid. Eventually some passers-by transported him in a taxi to the Santa Creu Hospital, where he received rudimentary care. By the time that the chaplain of the Sagrada Família, Mosén Gil Parés, recognised him on the following day, Gaudí's condition had deteriorated too severely to benefit from additional treatment. Gaudí died on 10 June 1926 at the age of 73 and was buried two days later.
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David Cardelús. Born in 1967 and raised in Barcelona, David majored in photography, film and video from Universitat de Barcelona Fine Arts School in 1991. Architecture Photographer since twenty years, he specialized in representing contemporary architecture for architectural firms and national and international publishing companies.

His photographs have been praised as having a distinctive graphic plasticity used to create images that serve both as unique aesthetic objects as well as powerful tools of communication. His work has been honored with the Civic Trust Awards 2012 and the International Photography Awards 2013. His most recent assignments include photographing the Palau de la Generalitat in Barcelona on the occasion of the commemoration of the 600 years of the building for the presidency of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the rehabilitation of the Modernist Compound at the Sant Pau Hospital by Lluís Domènech i Montaner.

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