In the previous blog post, we talked about the sentry walk at the top of the façade of La Pedrera-Casa Milà. It is on the stone railing of this promenade where discontinuously and with a typically Jujolian spelling, we can see written: "Ave - Gratia - M - Plena - Dominus - Tecum". These are the words that the Archangel Gabriel announced the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary.
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This inscription at the top of the building's façade is framed by two elements, one at each end of the inscription. At the beginning, on Passeig de Gràcia, we find three lilies, a symbol of purity; while at the end, in the street of Provença, we find a symbol which is not clearly known as it represents. There are various theories and possibilities around this second symbol, it could be a crown or a ring, everything is to be discovered. And in the middle of the inscription, together with the "M" of the Virgin Mary, we find the relief of a Rose, a symbol of Mary while remembering the name of the first owner of the building, Roser Segimon, wife of Pere Milà. |
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These are the symbols found at the top of the building’s façade, but it is known that there was an idea to place a sculpture in the middle of the corner, on Maria’s “M”. A sculpture of the Virgin with Jesus flanked by the archangels St. Michael and St. Gabriel. Carles Mani, a regular collaborator of Gaudí, made a plaster model of the sculpture and presented it to the owners. There are various theories as to why it was not sculpted or installed, either due to aesthetic discrepancies between Pere Milà and Gaudí or as a result of the Tragic Week (1909) and the anticlerical revolts that broke out in the city of Barcelona. |
Whatever the reason, the sculpture was never made, but all these other elements of the façade allow us to know a little more about the symbolic passion of the architect, a passion embodied throughout his work.
