Stoves from 1906-1912

[DanCorcoran]

(I'd like this to go in the Stove forum, but am afraid this may not be relevant enough).

Just returned from Barcelona, where I visited Casa Mila, designed by Antoni Gaudi and built in 1906-1912. The attached photos were taken in an apartment restored with period furnishings and equipment. One is of a small stove (coal, I assume), used by the staff for heating flatirons. The other is a cookstove

in the kitchen. I can't tell whether they had gas then, or still used wood or coal. There was an elevator in the building, so I assume they probably had gas as well.

Enjoy...and if you ever get to Barcelona, Casa Mila is spectacular!

 

[Paulywalnut]

Looks like gas line coming into the cook stove. Nice pics.

 

[Jags]

Looks like gas line coming into the cook stove. Nice pics.

I was wondering if they could have been water lines (heated water). Dunno. Pretty cool little purpose built stove for the flat irons. Neat how the irons would sit upright along the sidewalls of the stove.

 

[Ashful]

Those are water lines, not gas. One pair is connected to the storage tank, the other is either supply or runs off to some fixture elsewhere in the house.

 

[DanCorcoran]

Yeah, they looked like water lines to me, too. In the bathroom, however, there was a water tank over the bathtub, which I assumed was some sort of gas-fired on-demand water heater. This led me to believe that there were gas lines in the apartment, yet the stove looks more like a woodstove. ??

 

[Ashful]

Cool! Yeah, that thing you would think might be gas... do you have other photos showing the lines in/out of it?

If no lines, maybe kero? Kero was a common household heating fuel, at the time that bathroom was plumbed.

 

[DanCorcoran]

This was a multi-story apartment building in Barcelona, built in 1905-1910. I doubt kerosene in that scenario, but it's possible. This is a photo of the building exterior and another water heater in a different bathroom.

 

[Ashful]

Perhaps. I always have my head in the frame of what we were doing in the USA at that time. I really don't know if kero was as popular in Europe at the turn of the century. In fact, I believe the peak in kero heating here was late 1800's, and it may have already been on the decline by 1905.

 

[Jags]

Some buildings of that era used a compressed white gas (think coleman lantern). They would often locate the pressure vessel (looked like a fire extinguisher) in the ceiling or an attic.

 

[Paulywalnut]

I think I heard butane was a fuel used in the early 1900's. My house had a buried butane tank from early 1900's in the ground that a backhoe
found, much to the dismay of the operator. Not sure about Europe though.

 

[Dave A.]

This was a multi-story apartment building in Barcelona, built in 1905-1910. I doubt kerosene in that scenario, but it's possible. This is a photo of the building exterior and another water heater in a different bathroom.

Have seen a photo of this building before. Iirc, it represented the art nouveau style of architecture in the early part of the 20th century. Nice to see photos of the inside.

 

[DanCorcoran]

We hadn't even planned to visit Casa Mila before we arrived in Barcelona. We had an extra day at the end, so decided to visit. Wife and I agreed it was a high point of the trip. Inside that apartment, there is not a single square corner, they are all smooth curves. Where walls meet, where walls and ceiling meet, all curved. Virtually every doorway has carved relief, even the ceilings have undulating patterns (none the same), like the sand at the beach where there has been gentle lapping of waves in a protected pool.

We are both Barcelona lovers now...definitely recommend to anyone going to Europe. This is a view of the interior courtyard at dusk:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Casa_mila_atrium.jpg