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26-508: After being built for a fabrics company, it was adapted to serve as the headquarters of a local savings bank (first Caja León , later Caja España ). While Gaudí was finishing the construction of the Episcopal Palace of Astorga , his friend and patron, Eusebi Güell recommended that he build a house in the center of León. Simón Fernández and Mariano Andrés, the owners of a company that bought fabrics from Güell, commissioned Gaudí to build

52-479: A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. Romans also imported grapevines , and wine production thrived in the region until the propagation of Phylloxera at the end of the 19th century, which destroyed the majority of the vineyards. Historically part of the Kingdom of León , and briefly a province of its own within the larger Leonese region from 1821 to 1823 , with the new administrative division of Spain in 1833

78-525: A building with a medieval air and numerous neo-Gothic characteristics. The building consists of four floors, a basement and an attic. Gaudí chose an inclined roof and placed towers in the corners to reinforce the project's neo-Gothic feel. To ventilate and illuminate the basement, he created a moat around two of the façades, a strategy that he would repeat at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona . Gaudí placed

104-478: A radical improvement of the region's infrastructure. The economy is now based mainly on tourism, agriculture (fruit and wine ), wind power generation and slate mining. Important factors contributing to the recent boom of the tourism industry in the region are the increasing popularity of the Way of St. James (Spanish: Camino de Santiago ; a pilgrimage route that goes from France to Santiago de Compostela , Galicia),

130-554: A residential building with a warehouse. The house's nickname comes from the last name of the company's former owner, Joan Homs i Botinàs. In 1929, the savings bank of León, Caja España , bought the building and adapted it to its needs, without altering Gaudí's original project. In 2010 the bank merged with other similar institutions as part of Spain's response to the economic crisis. With the Casa Botines, Gaudí wanted to pay tribute to León's emblematic buildings. Therefore, he designed

156-452: Is a comarca in the province of León , Spain. Its capital is the town of Ponferrada . Other major towns are Bembibre and Villafranca del Bierzo , the historical capital. The territory of El Bierzo includes most of the upper basin of the Sil river . It is surrounded by mountains on all sides, which makes this area remarkably isolated from all neighbouring lands. In pre-Roman times the region

182-602: Is a building by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí . It was built between 1889 and 1913. Designed in the Catalan Modernisme style, it is one of only three buildings by Gaudí outside Catalonia . When the original Episcopal Palace was destroyed by a fire in the 19th century, Bishop Juan Bautista Grau y Vallespinos of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Astorga decided to assign the design of the new building to his friend Antoni Gaudí. The two had become friends when Grau

208-786: Is also spoken in western El Bierzo and a small area called As Portelas in the westernmost part of the province of Zamora , both areas in the community of Castile and Leon ; the teaching of Galician in public education is allowed in those areas under an agreement between the Education Departments of Galicia and Castile and Leon. In 2005–2006 there were 844 students studying in 9 municipalities of El Bierzo, with 47 teachers, and in 2008–2009 more than 1000 students enrolled in Galician courses in El Bierzo and As Portelas, although many of them are children of immigrants from Galicia. In addition to that,

234-497: Is the western Asturleonese variant most entrenched in the north of El Bierzo, where there are estimated to be about 4,000 speakers of Leonese. The railroad arrived in the region in 1881, and during World War I local tungsten deposits were exploited to supply the arms industry . In 1918 the Ponferrada Mining, Iron and Steel Company ( Spanish: Minero Siderúrgica de Ponferrada (MSP) ) was founded to exploit coal deposits in

260-760: The Spanish Civil War , the building served as the local headquarters of the Falange . In 1956 Julià Castelltort, a Catalan, began restoration works to adapt the building as a bishop's residence. Later, Bishop Marcelo González Martín promoted the conversion to the current role of the palace, a museum of religious art called Museo de los Caminos , dedicated to the Way of Santiago . 42°27′28″N 6°03′22″W  /  42.4578°N 6.0560°W  / 42.4578; -6.0560 El Bierzo El Bierzo ( Spanish pronunciation: [el ˈβjeɾ.θo] ; Leonese : El Bierciu or El Bierzu ; Galician : O Bierzo )

286-410: The Galician traits increase as one moves from east to west. The use of Galician and Leonese in everyday speech has mixed usages. Although both have enjoyed a recent revival through the work of different associations that promote their use and study, Galician has been more favored, extending its area of influence. Leonese continues to have a very limited use. The Galician language, in addition to Galicia,

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312-564: The Statute of Autonomy of Castile and Leon, in its article No. 5, states: "[We] Shall respect and protect the Galician language and language patterns in places where the language is habitually used." . The number of Galician speakers in El Bierzo is estimated to be about 35,000 people concentrated in the westernmost municipalities of the region. In the last year the Bercianos have made many campaigns to improve Galicians' use in their Comarca, even with

338-424: The chimneys integrated in the side façades . Gaudí had devised a five-meter tall angel to crown the façade, but it was never mounted. The façade has four cylindrical towers and is surrounded by a ditch. In 1893, after the death of Bishop Grau, Gaudí resigned over disagreements with the council, halting the construction for several years. The palace was completed between 1907 and 1915 by Ricardo Garcia Guereta. During

364-514: The collaboration of members from the Royal Galician Academy , professors and students from Villafranca del Bierzo . Politically, usually the Galeguist parties defend the use of Galician language in the western Bierzo, parties as Galician Nationalist Bloc or PSdeG , but recently, even right-wing parties like People's Party defend the Galician language in the area. Pachuezu or patsuezu

390-592: The designation in 1997 of Las Médulas as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the development of rural tourism lodging and wineries in the area. The Energy City Foundation Spanish: Fundación Ciudad de la Energía was established in Ponferrada in 2006 and is currently overseeing the construction of the National Energy Museum ( Spanish: Museo Nacional de la Energía ) in the city, as well as sponsoring several other initiatives that should further boost tourism and

416-457: The façades of Casa de los Botines have a structural function. On the inclined roof, six skylights supported by iron tie-beams illuminate and ventilate the attic. The ensemble is supported on a complex wooden framework. 42°35′53.82″N 5°34′14″W  /  42.5982833°N 5.57056°W  / 42.5982833; -5.57056 Episcopal Palace, Astorga The Episcopal Palace of Astorga ( Spanish : Palacio Episcopal de Astorga )

442-411: The floor, located at a great depth, more resistant. Despite rumors that the building would collapse during construction, the house has never had structural problems. On the ground floor, the architect used —for the first time— a system of cast-iron pillars in a frame structure, allowing for a more open plan, without the need for the load-bearing walls to distribute it. Also unlike Gaudí's previous projects,

468-489: The late 1980s most mines were closed, and after the collapse of the mining industry the region was for a while in a crisis. However, in the late 1990s the region underwent a major transformation with the establishment of several industrial and services firms, the reintroduction of commercial wine production, the opening of a local branch of the University of León in Ponferrada offering several undergraduate degrees, and in general

494-467: The majority of the region was integrated in the province of León , with the Valdeorras municipalities becoming part of Galicia . El Bierzo developed its own peculiarities as Galician and Leonese traditions mixed under Castilian influence, and thus was granted the administrative status of comarca . Spanish is the official language, but local dialects of Galician and Leonese are also spoken in

520-527: The new project. Gaudí sent back his design, and it was approved in February 1889. The first stone was placed in June the following year. The edifice, built in gray granite from El Bierzo , is in a neo-medieval style harmonizing with its location, including the cathedral in particular. It does, however, also feature some of the elements typical of the later Gaudí, such as the arches of the entrance with buttresses , and

546-405: The owners' dwellings on the first floor. These are accessed, respectively, by independent doors in the lateral and back façades. The upper floors house rental property and the lower floor contains the company offices. The building's principal entrance is crowned by a wrought iron inscription with the name of the company and by a stone sculpture of Saint George shown as he is slaying a dragon. During

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572-545: The region, and it grew to become Spain's largest coal mining corporation. The Spanish National Energy Corporation ( Endesa ) was founded in 1944 and in 1949 it opened Spain's first coal-fueled power plant in Ponferrada, Compostilla I . In 1960 the Bárcena Dam ( Spanish: Pantano de Bárcena ) opened and by the second half of the 20th century the economy of the region was mainly based on mining and electricity generation , both hydroelectric and coal-fueled . Starting in

598-473: The restoration of the building in 1950, workers discovered a tube of lead under the sculpture containing the original plans signed by Gaudí and press clippings from the era. The foundations of the Casa de los Botines were a subject of debate during the building's construction. Gaudí had envisioned a continuous base, like that of the city's cathedral. However, local technicians insisted on constructing on pilotis to make

624-480: The westernmost areas and are present in some village toponyms. In the 12th century there was a colony of immigrants from Poitou in the Bierzo. The status of El Bierzo as a shire is recognized by law, and it is the only one officially recognized in the autonomous community of Castile and León . The predominant language nowadays is Spanish but the local vernaculars can be classified as either Galician or Leonese ;

650-508: Was Vicar-General in the Archdiocese of Tarragona and had inaugurated a church for which the architect had designed the high altar. When Gaudí received the commission, he was still working at the Palau Güell in Barcelona , and thus he could not move to Astorga to study the terrain and the area of the new construction. He therefore asked the bishop to send him photographs so Gaudí could plan

676-624: Was populated by the Astures , a Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian people. They were conquered by Emperor Augustus in the Astur-Cantabrian Wars (29–19 BC) and the area quickly became the largest mining center of the Empire during the Roman period , where gold and other metals and minerals were extracted. Numerous Roman mining sites are still visible in the area, one of the most spectacular being Las Médulas ,

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