Casa Botines
The Casa Botines is now a museum that was designed as a residential and commercial building in 1891 by the architect Antoni Gaudí and built in León in 1892 .
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Main facade to the Plaza de Santo Domingo
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Column hall on the ground floor
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Geographical location
The Casa Botines stands next to the Palacio de Los Guzmanes from the 16th century, today the seat of the provincial government of the autonomous community of Castile and León in Spain , in the Plaza de Santo Domingo in León. In the city, the building is on the border between the historic old town and the city expansion from the end of the 19th century.
Surname
The name of the building has a somewhat complex history: in 1834 the Catalan merchant Juan Homs y Botines founded a cloth shop in León, the Casa Botines . By inheritance through a niece, at the end of the 19th century it was in the hands of two partners, Mariano Andrés González-Luna and Simón Fernández Fernández. Despite the change of ownership, the cloth shop kept the name Casa Botines . That didn't change when the business moved to today's Casa Botines in 1892 . The name was subsequently transferred to the building. The original company founder, Juan Homs y Botines , has nothing to do with the building.
history
planning
The project started with a violent legal battle, as neighbors resisted the development of the previously undeveloped property. It was also controversial how far the property extended into the Plaza de San Marcelo. The legal dispute was ended by a court judgment in 1890 that awarded the building owners, Mariano Andrés González-Luna and Simón Fernández Fernández, the disputed 800 square meters.
Mariano Andrés González-Luna († 1911) and Simón Fernández Fernández († 1893) together ran a pawn shop and banking business in addition to the textile business. They maintained business relationships with Catalonia. For example, they represented the Banco Hispano-Colonial from Barcelona, founded by the Marqués de Comillas, who was Eusebi Güell's father-in-law , Gaudí's main patron. This is how the contact came about, which led to Antoni Gaudí being commissioned to build the new residential and commercial building on the Plaza de San Marcelo. That was all the easier for him when he was working at the same time (1889-1893) at the Bishop's Palace in neighboring Astorga . The architect had completed the plans for the Casa Botines in December 1891.
construction
Construction began on January 4, 1892. There were few skilled workers in León to build such a house, but there were stonemasons who worked on the restoration of the cathedral. There were also further difficulties with the building supervision. And Gaudí had a lot to do in Barcelona at the same time, so that he rarely went to the construction site and tried to do as much as possible in writing. Mainly his foreman Claudi Alsina acted on site. After all, it only took him 10 months to complete the work, so that the house was ready to move into in November 1892. At the end of the work, on November 15, 1893, the picture of St. George with the dragon was mounted.
use
First, Mariano Andrés González-Luna and the heirs of his partner, Simón Fernández Fernández, who died in 1893, used the building. Andrés González-Luna later bought their shares. After the death of Mariano Andrés in 1911, half of the ownership of the house passed to his widow and the other half to his two sons.
In 1929 the savings bank Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de León bought the house for 750,000 pesetas. In 1931 she carried out a renovation, which mainly changed the ground floor, where a modern counter hall was housed. Far more difficult was a structural intervention that took place in 1953: Seven of the 28 cast iron - pillars of the hall on the ground floor were removed and their static function replaced by horizontal beams, in order to create more space. The other columns were paneled: the shafts disappeared optically behind rectangular wooden paneling, the capitals above a suspended ceiling made of plasterboard. In 1953 the statue of St. George was replaced by one of the Virgin Mary , patron saint of the Kingdom of León. A capsule was found behind the statue containing a number of documents related to the work on the building, such as the plans of the building signed by Gaudí, the purchase agreement, a report on the completion of the work and local newspapers.
The building was owned by the Sparkasse until 1990. This year there was a merger of several savings banks, which now operated under the name of Caja España , who now owned the building. From 1992 the building was renovated according to the principles of monument preservation in order to restore it to its original condition and to make the Sparkasse a prestigious place of business. Original elements that had previously been removed or changed were restored or reproduced using copies. On December 20, 1996, the renovated building was inaugurated again.
In 2016 there was another merger: The savings banks Caja España and Caja Duero merged, the administrative headquarters in León became superfluous, the building was incorporated into the España-Duero Foundation and now used as a museum as Gaudí Casa Botines Museum , which opened on April 23 Opened in 2017.
building
building ground
Mariano Andrés González-Luna and Simón Fernández Fernández acquired the almost 2,400 m² large, trapezoidal building plot, which was then on the outskirts, in 1886 from a community of heirs around the Duke of Uceda , Francisco de Borja Téllez-Girón y Fernández de Velasco, who had already been in 1882 the neighboring Palacio de Los Guzmanes had sold to the city. The purchase price for the building plot was 17,000 pesetas .
Classification
In accordance with its original use, offices, storage and sales rooms were housed in the half-basement and on the ground floor. The upper floors contained apartments of the upper class: the first floor contained the two apartments of the partners and the two upper floors had four apartments per floor. The caretaker's apartment was in the converted attic. The attic is two-story, as the roof has a corresponding height.
Due to the shape of the property, the floor plan of the building is slightly trapezoidal with four different facade lengths: north facade 35.5 m, south facade, 28.5 m, east facade 25 m and west facade 20 m. The main entrance is on the Plaza de San Marcelo . Today it is the entrance to the museum. Here visitors came to the sales room and the offices. The entrance on the opposite side of the building served as access to the warehouse. The side entrances led to the apartments.
construction
Inside, the building rests on a set of 28 cast-iron columns with a diameter of 20 m, cm each in the ground floor and half-basement. Both levels thus became halls covering almost the entire respective floor. This enabled maximum spatial use, natural lighting for the entire room and good air exchange. The resulting grid of 12 × 8 resulted in 96 modules that could be separated by walls or put together, depending on how the areas were used.
Exterior
The appearance of the building is characterized by massive limestone walls, the bosses of which give it a rustic, fortress-like and "historical" character. In fact, some of these “defensive” ingredients have practical functions: The ditch surrounding the building is used to give the rooms in the basement full daylight. The corner towers are also there to illuminate the corner rooms. The four cylindrical corner towers, placed on corbels , protrude from the facade. They have conical tips covered in slate and each have a weather vane with a Maltese cross . The roof is also covered with slate. The house is surrounded by a moat, which is secured to the street with wrought iron bars. Most of the windows are Gothic , except in the towers. This is caused by the doors and windows, which are designed with rag arches. Otherwise, however, the facade emphasizes the horizontality with well-marked cornices. The main entrance was adorned with a wrought iron gate with a lion figure, a homage to the city. Above this door is the 2.9 m high sculpture of Saint George with the dragon designed by Llorenç Matamala and cut by a stonemason on site. The model for the figure of the saint was Matamala himself and for the dragon one of the gargoyles from the apse of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The original statue was replaced by a replica in 1956. There is a clock above this statue.
Interior
In contrast to the Gothic style of the facade, the interior is completely modern in Art Nouveau forms , with cupboards, stained glass windows, sgraffito and ironwork such as railings and handles. On the ground floor there are stained glass windows depicting scenes from León and - repeated eleven times - the León coat of arms, scenes from industry, trade, labor and agriculture.
Light shafts run through the building vertically. They receive their light from six large windows in the roof.
Monument protection
On August 24, 1969, the Casa Botines was declared a Spanish cultural monument by a decree of the Council of Ministers . It is recorded in the register of immovable cultural monuments under number RI-51-0003826.
In the self-presentation of the foundation it is stated that the Caja España received a prize from Europa Nostra for the renovation that was carried out from 1992 to 1996 . However, there is no information on this on their homepage.
museum
The Gaudí Casa Botines Museum shows an exhibition on the work of Gaudí and Casa Botines in particular on the ground floor . In addition, two of the residential floors above can be visited: One floor is furnished with objects from the time it was built, another floor is used as a picture gallery. Works by Ramon Casas i Carbó , Joaquín Sorolla , Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz and Antoni Tàpies , among others , are shown here.
Worth knowing
The Casa Botines is one of three works that Antoni Gaudí created outside of Catalonia. The others are the Episcopal Palace of Astorga and Villa Quijano in Cantabria.
literature
- Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí . OO, before 2019 [guide sheet].
- Caja España Centro de Documentación (ed.): El edificio Gaudí de León. Casa Botines . 1st edition: León 1997. ISBN 84-87739-58-X ; 2nd edition: León 2000. ISBN 84-87739-86-5
Web links
- Homepage of the Gaudí Casa Botines Museum ; accessed on June 6, 2019
- Casa Botines website ; accessed on June 6, 2019
Individual evidence
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 4.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 2.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 5.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 5.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 3.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 2.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 5.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 4.
- ^ Homepage of the Gaudí Casa Botines Museum ; accessed on June 6, 2019.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 2.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 3.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 3.
- ^ Entry of Casa Botines in the Spanish list of monuments ; accessed on June 6, 2019.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 4.
- ^ Homepage of Europa Nostra .
- ^ Homepage of the Gaudí Casa Botines Museum ; accessed on June 6, 2019.
- ↑ Caja España: Casa Botines Gaudí , p. 3.
Coordinates: 42 ° 35 ′ 54.3 " N , 5 ° 34 ′ 14.6" W.