El Capricho de Gaudí · El Auriga del Arte

Villa Quijano (1883-1885), better known as El Capricho, located in Comillas (Cantabria), is one of the first architectural works designed by Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926). It was commissioned by Don Máximo Díaz de Quijano (in the video I sometimes say Marcelino, but that's a mistake), a lawyer and brother-in-law of the Marquis of Comillas, a wealthy man who had made his fortune in Cuba, and who wanted a summer villa for his personal use. Fate decreed that Don Máximo could only enjoy his Capricho for a week, as he died seven days after moving into the villa, a victim of malaria he had contracted in Cuba. The building can be classified within the Modernist (Art Nouveau) style, but it also shows influences from other styles used by Gaudí, such as Orientalism, Neo-Gothic, and Neo-Mudéjar. In this work Gaudí experiments with many of the architectural and design solutions that we will later see in his most famous works in Barcelona, ​​such as Casa Batlló, Casa Milá, Park Güell or the Sagrada Familia.