Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built

Written by Susan Hughes

Illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

Owlkids Books

978-1-77147-392-7

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

March 2021

Antoni Gaudí was a Catalan architect whose unique style marks a number of buildings in Spain and most notably in Barcelona. Just as alluring is Susan Hughes's fictionalized story, illustrated by the formidable Marianne Ferrer, of the development of Gaudí's idea for the home of the Batlló family, known worldwide as Casa Batlló.

From Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built by Susan Hughes, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

While her family anticipates a move from the country to a city home in Barcelona, young Carmen despairs at leaving the wilds of the countryside and her imaginary salamander, Dragon.

   In the woods, hollows cradled them
close and hills tumbled them about.
   Water sparkled and the light showed
them colors everywhere.
   Trees swayed, gently, fiercely.
   Could Carmen ever feel at home in
the gray, straight, stiff city? Impossible!

But when Señor Gaudí visits, he spends time outside, with Carmen trailing. "We do not create," he said later. "We discover."

From Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built by Susan Hughes, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

Carmen soon realizes that his visits, time outdoors and walks in nature feed his creativity, driving him to incorporate the organic into the structural, even seeing what Carmen sees, including her imaginary friend.

From Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built by Susan Hughes, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

Her own visits to their unfolding city home reveal water lily tiling, curved embracing walls, blues of water, sunbursts and more. After two years of development, and saying goodbye to Dragon (prematurely), the family moves into Casa Batlló, and Carmen discovers that "This house–this city–could be a home for her after all."

From Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built by Susan Hughes, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

Our world is peppered with extraordinary achievements from science to art and the stories of those achievements can be just as extraordinary or not. Susan Hughes could've just told the history of this jewel of architecture but she's a much better writer than that. By creating a back story for the house that Gaudí built which includes Carmen and her salamander, the building is a celebration of the natural world in a man-made structure, and becomes the home in which Carmen could rejoice as she had in the country. It becomes a story of imagination and creativity and creating by imagining. The outdoors becomes the indoors but only through observation, attention to detail and tribute. 

Just as glorious as Casa Batlló are Montreal artist Marianne Ferrer's illustrations. Blending a variety of media, including gouache and watercolour, Marianne Ferrer creates magic both in the outdoors of Carmen's natural world and in the evolving new house. Though her palette is relatively limited, she uses colour to emphasize the resplendent nature of the new house, jewelled as only a "better" version of nature could be. Moreover with characteristic boldness in her curved lines and shapes, Marianne Ferrer applauds what is natural, just as Gaudí did.

From Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built by Susan Hughes, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

This may not be how Gaudí came to develop Case Batlló–though Carmen Batlló certainly did exist, as Susan Hughes's "Author's Note" tells us–but I hope it is. It reminds us that the two worlds, indoors and out, should not be separate, and that magic happens when the two meet.