The Casa Madrigal (otherwise referred to as Casita) is a location featured in Disney's 2021 animated feature film Encanto. Created by a magical candle, Casita is home to the The Madrigals. Like its gifted residents, Casita harbors magic of its own in the form of sentience.
Personality-wise, the Casita is described to be "little bit more opinionated and flawed like a family. It's a house that plays favorites, a house that messes with people", and its personality "aligns with the feelings of the family Madrigal", such as being happy if the family is happy, or the house's walls beginning to crack if there's discord among them.[1]
Generally, the Casita is kind and very helpful towards the family, using its ability to rearrange its features to suit the family's needs or aid them in their daily routines. The Casita deeply cares about the Madrigals and puts their safety before itself, going as far as evacuating everyone when it was falling apart from the loss of the magic, and used the last of its strength to protect Mirabel from harm.
Description[]
Casa Madrigal is a three-story square building that encloses the ceilingless courtyard at its center. There are many small balconies located on the outer walls and the roof of the house is Spanish roof tiles. Adjacent to the courtyard, there is a single staircase connecting the ground floor with the second floor, which is where Pedro's portrait hangs. After being rebuilt, the front door depicts all of the members of the Madrigal family together carved into the wood.
Kitchen
The ground floor consists of recreational rooms, such as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor is basically one long balcony that overlooks the courtyard and it's where all of the bedrooms are located. Each bedroom door depicts its inhabitant's name and their respective gift carved into the wood, and they emit a golden glow that illuminates the image. The bedroom doors also have the inhabitant's first initial carved on the doorknob. Relative to the front door, Alma's door is in the center in the back with Pepa's door to its left and Julieta's door to its right. Directly across from Alma's door on the opposite side of the house, above the front door, is the Nursery door, which also functions as Mirabel's personal bedroom. Dolores, Camilo, and Antonio's doors are on the left side, adjacent to their mother, Pepa's door. Isabela and Luisa's doors are on the right side, adjacent to their mother, Julieta's door.
The second floor.
Due to the magical nature of the Casita, the bedrooms are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside, and the nature of the inside of each bedroom corresponds to and acts as extensions of its inhabitant's gift: Isabela's bedroom is a garden in the likeness of a princess' palace bedroom, and Antonio's bedroom is a jungle filled with all kinds of animals for him to converse with. Although that is not always the case, as Alma's bedroom is a replica of her old room from her previous town.[2] Among the bedrooms, there is a nursery where the children under the age of five reside before they get their own room during their birthday/gift ceremony, and the nursery functions as Mirabel's bedroom as well. While it was not shown in the film, the Casita has only one bathroom that the whole family shares.[3]
The third floor consists of Bruno's tower and a room with an open window that displays the magic candle.
Casita is able to freely manipulate itself and all the furniture inside it; it can open and close its own doors, windows, drawers, and cabinets, move and flip the tiles and planks that make up its floors, and it can even decorate itself. Casita also has power in the magical rooms, though that power can be cut off if a gifted family member is emotionally disconnected from the family, as seen with Bruno's door in a flashback, due to the fact that everyone doesn't talk about him, including his family, and that they despise his visions.[4] After being rebuilt, Casita also acts the vessel for the family's magic.
Background[]
Pedro's portrait that hangs in Casa Madrigal.
The Casa Madrigal is a magical house created by the magic candle owned by Alma Madrigal and after the death of her husband, Pedro, who was killed by soldiers after they conquered their previous village.
Through the candle, it gives each member of the family a magical gift on their fifth birthday. While it seems Mirabel was the only exception to the rule, as the door to what should have been her special room had disappeared when she turned five, it might be possible that the Casa Madrigal knew what it was doing, as Mirabel showed no hard feelings to what happened and has "conversations" with the house whenever they are working together for something special, and when the house and its magic seemed to be fading—and everyone's gifts with it—Mirabel seems to be the only one who has what it takes to fix it, as she does not need powers to look for the real problem and find a solution.
The Casita's new front door.
Later, when the Casa Madrigal begins to lose its magic, more cracks and debris begin appearing, forcing the Madrigals (including Antonio's pet animals) to leave the house in a panic, and as many cracks start appearing in the house, Casa Madrigal eventually collapsed, leaving the Madrigals homeless and without their gifts, as the candle had also melted away due to a heated fight between Mirabel and Alma. The next day, Alma found Mirabel at the river where her husband Pedro died before the Casa Madrigal was created fifty years ago. Recounting the tragedy that resulted in both the Encanto and their family's sentient home, Alma recognizes the downfall of Casa Madrigal as her fault from unconsciously taking their miracle for granted. An understanding Mirabel and apologetic Alma reconciling, they and the rest of the Madrigals (including a reinstated Bruno) work together in rebuilding the house. Once construction was finished, Mirabel adds the front door's doorknob (which her family made for her) to the Casa Madrigal, bringing forth new magic (born from Mirabel's love for her family). With Casita as the new vessel for the magic and regaining its sentience, the Madrigal family members rejoice in the return of their home and gifts with enthusiasm.
Trivia[]
- "Casa" means home or house in Portuguese and Spanish.
- "Casita" translates to cottage or small house in Spanish.
- Though Casita can freely manipulate itself and its internal features, it has never been seen changing its overall structure, nor has the building ever moved from its location.
- Jared Bush implies that the Casita could expand itself if the Madrigal family grows larger.[5][6]
- According to Jared Bush, the images that depict the previous gift ceremonies are not photographs, as color photography was not possible in the time period the film is set in.[7] Given the nature of Casita, the colored images are likely due to magic.
- In the photos of the gift ceremonies, the doors look exactly like how they do in the present time and with the current age of these characters, despite the characters being much younger when their door was engraved; all while Antonio, who gets his power in the course of the movie, has his door showing him at his present age. It is most obvious with the past and current appearances of Bruno and Isabela, both of whom undergo drastic appearance changes between their ceremonies and the present time. Jared Bush confirmed that the magical doors can change as their owners grow.[8]
- Casita was initially supposed to have a more antagonistic relationship with Mirabel as the two would have fought for Abuela's approval. Following the COVID lockdown, the team realized that Mirabel needed support so Casita was given a more supportive role.[9][10]
- The doors of the Madrigals with gifts (and Abuela Alma) have their doorknobs with the first letter of their names (A for both Abuela and Antonio, B for Bruno, C for Camilo, D for Dolores, I for Isabela, J for Julieta, L for Luisa, and P for Pepa).
- The only exception to this is Mirabel, whose doorknob with the letter M is on the entrance of the newly rebuilt Casita.
- According to Jared Bush, Pepa's room is not able to contain her powers within its walls, so the weather around the Encanto is still affected even when she is in her room.[11]
- While Dolores' room is never seen in the film, Jared Bush stated her room does contain some soundproofing.[12]
- For Camilo's magical door, Jared Bush stated it was "tricky" to visualize Camilo's shape-shift ability with a static image, therefore the three silhouettes were put on his door to represent his gift and the door's portrait of him isn't meant to be seen as his younger self.[13]
- It is also seen during "The Family Madrigal" that Casita's second floor can act as a gigantic treadmill, as seen with Luisa.
- According to the novel Disney Encanto: A Tale of Three Sisters, Luisa's room is a maze of weights and pulleys. There are ropes to climb, bars to swing across, and a shower to clean herself up.
- Concept art reveals that her room would have resembled a beach side villa with exercise equipment. Another, had it be a rocky canyon and one had it resemble a boring room with a secret entrance to a theme park.
- It has been theorized a lot of what Mirabel's gift is; a highly thought theory says her "gift" would be the same as Abuela Alma (being in charge of the magic). A part of this theory is that Mirabel and Alma both frequently control Casita in the movie (although it's likely that everyone can control Casita).
- The Casa Madrigal is the fourth anthropomorphic object in a Disney Animated Canon film, the first was Eilonwy's bauble from The Black Cauldron, the second was the Magic Carpet from Aladdin, and the third was the Ocean from Moana. Like the latter two, it is a silent friend and ally to the protagonists capable of human emotions.
- Coincidentally, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote songs for both Moana and Encanto.
- Casita was the most challenging character to design.[14]
- Unlike the other inhabitants, Alma's door doesn't have her name carved into it. Rather it has the title "Abuela".
Gallery[]
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