El Capricho, Modernist museum in Comillas, Spain.
El Capricho is a museum designed by Antoni Gaudí in Comillas, housed in a residential building with a cylindrical tower and green-and-white tile helix on the outer wall. Wrought iron balconies, ceramic sunflower tiles, and arches that suggest Eastern influences divide the facade horizontally, while the tower pulls the building upward.
Máximo Díaz de Quijano, a lawyer enriched in Cuba, commissioned the villa in 1883 as a summer residence next to the Palacio de Sobrellano. Gaudí designed it during his orientalist period, and Cristóbal Cascante directed the works until 1885. Quijano died a few months after completion, before he could use the house; it later passed to his sister Benita and her son Santiago, who altered it in 1914.
The villa carries the nickname Villa Quijano after its first resident and stands as one of three works by the architect outside Catalonia. Throughout the house, visitors encounter sunflower motifs that appear in tiles, ironwork, and glass windows, running from the basement to the tower top.
Guided tours are offered daily in several languages and last about one hour, with visitors walking through all the rooms and viewing the outdoor grounds. The site sits on the edge of Comillas, about a twenty-minute walk from the center.
The tower's iron railing carries treble-clef motifs, a nod to the music-loving owner Máximo Díaz de Quijano. The tower stands 20 metres high and served as a lookout over the Cantabrian Sea. Its top is crowned by a small temple resting on four iron columns.
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