Comillas, Cantabria, The Villa Quijano, popularly known as El Capricho, is a modernist building located in the Cantabrian town of Comillas. It was designed by Antoni Gaudí and built between 1883 and 1885 under the direction of Cristóbal Cascante, assistant to the architect from Reus, commissioned by the Indian Máximo Díaz de Quijano. It is one of the few works that Gaudí designed outside Catalonia.
This work belongs to Gaudí's orientalist period (1883-1888), a period in which the architect produced a series of works with a marked oriental taste, inspired by the art of the Near and Far East (India, Persia, Japan), as well as by Hispanic Islamic art, mainly Mudejar and Nasrid. Gaudí used ceramic tile decoration with great profusion, as well as mitered arches, exposed brick cartouches and temple or dome-shaped finials.
The building fell into abandonment after the Civil War, a state in which it remained despite its declaration as an Asset of Cultural Interest in 1969. In 1977 the last descendant of the López-Díaz de Quijano family, Pilar Güell Martos, sold the property to businessman Antonio Díaz, who restored it in 1988 and converted it into a restaurant. In 1992 it was bought by the Japanese group Mido Development. Finally, in 2009, the building became a museum.
