STYLE : VIVA BARCELONA! : INTERIORS : Spare Change

Though the buildings themselves are sometimes Modernista masterpieces, apartments in the turn-of-the-century Barcelona neighborhood known as the Eixample (Expansion) are often dark warrens of little rooms, cut off from one another and from the air, the sun and any urban activity taking place outside.

English architect Jonathan Caplan saw through the walls, though, and turned two adjacent flats in a modern (though non-Modernista) apartment building into a roomy home-and-office combination. The striking, 90-foot-long living room doubles as a reception area and is illuminated by French windows that reach from the ceilings to the floors. Now sunlight warms the large interior, making it an inviting space in which to pass the time.

Polished hardwood flooring alternates with earth-red tile and mosaic insets throughout the apartment. Light bulbs in a variety of shapes hang from exposed wires against the matte-white walls and are typical of Caplan’s minimalist furnishing style--bright and spare. It’s almost as if the architect planned his home-office as a haven from the riot of design outside.