Gaietà Vila house

This building is in Rector Ferrer Street 8, also known as Església square. It was built in 1905 by Alfred Paluzié Lucena, Olot's municipal architect from 1897 to 1913. It is a Modernist-Medieval construction with a mixture of eclectic elements. Gaietà Vila house is a great example of the tendency to build three façade buildings, strategically located on one end of the Firal, in which each façade presents its own composition and decoration. Like other buildings of the city, the merlons and the decoration have been clearly influenced by a Medieval style. It is composed by colourful vegetable and animal elements combined with dragons made of wrought iron. In fact, in this house it seems like Paluzié gets closer to the neo-Medieval idea of Josep Puig i Cadafalch, especially due to the merlons that crown the building and give it a fortified air. The use of white and the greenish glazed ceramic help the openings to stand out. This house shows how Modernism influenced carpenters, glass makers, blacksmiths, etc. A great example of this are the tortuous lines of the banisters found in the balconies or the round-shaped window frames.