'Several of Gaudi's major projects entailed designing interiors and, in particular, furniture. For an artist with such a holistic view of his work, to leave the conception of his constructions interiors t others would have constituted a gross inconsistency. In every case objects created for interiors were integrally linked to their physical contexts; they literally grew out of them. At the base of that conception was an acute awareness of natural unity. It would have been unthinkable for Gaudi to create and independent object suitable for any environment. Interior - as well as exterior - space was dictated by organic relations. Thus, a piece of furniture was constructed according to almost human characteristics: at the base, a skeleton - its structural plan; then the vital organs - its volume; finally, the skin - its decoration.
We can examine these elements one by one. First, the structure. An anecdote indicates how deeply Gaudi understood its significance. One of his closest co-workers, Juan Bergo, recounted how, during the Spanish Civil War, a bomb blast shattered all the windows of the Casa Calvet. A chair had been placed just beside one of the windows. So carefully was it conceived and constructed that under the shock of the blast, instead of breaking up in a haphazard way, its members flew apart exactly at their assembly points. It was subsequently a simple matter to restore the chair to its original state. Gaudi the architect, with his profound understanding of structural requirements, was ever vigilant.
The next essential component was volume. If the outer plan was rigorous, no details of the inner structure were neglected. For the Casa Mila - his last civic work - Gaudi had planned to run a picture moulding along the walls, from one apartment to the next. This element would serve to transform the walls into a sort of organic membrane, designed to facilitate rapid and dramatic modifications both of the wall coverings themselves and of other decorative features relating to them, such as paintings and tapestries. A Building, and its interior, must be made to grow, to change, to evolve.
The final essential element was the surface decoration. Gaudi concerned himself with even the most minute details. If he created floor-tiles, lamps, even door handles, it was not for pleasure of playing with forms but because of his unshakeable conviction that all these elements were essential to complete a whole, fully integrated and self-complimentary environment. Again, like the human body, in which each vital organ is indispensable to the whole in order to sustain life, in a building each object, every detail, visible or not, must contribute to the harmonious functioning of the whole.
How did that harmony relate to human needs? Gaudi firmly believed that it should address itself as much to the human sensibility as to physical requirements. It had to nourish the spirit; to elevate the senses. This conviction intensified as the artist matured. The marked evolution in his personal and spiritual existence - from the young, exuberant man-about-town to the mature, religiously devoted near-ascetic in pursuit of loftier goals - is distinctly paralleled by a clear development progression in his furniture design, where an early, highly ornamental extravagance gives way step by step to a clean-lined, distilled and exquisitely expressive purity.
Most characteristic of Gaudi's mature style of conception and design are the chairs of the Casa Calvet and, slightly later, the Casa Batllo. These pieces provide the most marked examples of organic symbolism in this period of his work. Legs often resemble either extensions of the human body or animal-like members. These features are integrated into the form with absolute structural simplicity.'
This sort of evaluation provides a further insight into how Gaudi develop his work and just how smart his designs were, It provides a much deeper reason behind the art, and reveals levels of religious influence, anthropomorphic characteristics and organic relevance. When considering the furnishing assets of the project I will consider these artistic values and attempt to replicate them throughout the production period.
Once again through a number of sources, in particular the 'Gaudi, A Visionary' book I was able to gather a number of resources for interior assets, with detailed descriptions referring to the materials and construction:
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