Casa Batlló

Casa Batlló is the most photographed of Antoni Gaudí’s city houses, and it stands on the Passeig de Gràcia, the avenue where wealthy Barcelona families competed to have the most fashionable homes around 1900. The building was already there, designed in 1877 by Emili Sala Cortés, when the textile industrialist Josep Batlló bought it. He commissioned Gaudí to remodel it in 1904, and the work was completed by 1906. Gaudí did not demolish the structure but transformed it, adding a floor, redesigning the façade and reorganising the interior.

The façade is the first surprise. It is covered with fragments of coloured glass and ceramic that shimmer from green to blue and orange in changing light. The balconies look like masks or skulls, and the supporting columns on the lower floors resemble bones, which led local people to call it the house of bones. The roof curves like the back of an animal, and the scale-like tiles are often compared to a dragon. One reading links the design to the legend of Saint George, the patron saint of Catalonia: the arched roof is the dragon, the tower topped with a cross is the lance of the saint, and the balconies are the victims. Gaudí himself left no detailed explanation, so this remains an interpretation.

Inside, almost nothing is straight. The main floor, the noble floor, has undulating walls and ceilings, a large window with stained glass towards the street and a fireplace nook shaped almost like a mushroom. The central light well is lined with glazed tiles that shift from deep blue at the top to paler tones below, to share the daylight evenly between floors, and the ventilation was designed with the same care. In the attic, a row of parabolic arches resembles the ribcage of a large animal. The roof terrace has its distinctive chimney pots, which look like abstract sculptures.

Visit options include daytime tours and evening visits, and the building also holds temporary exhibitions and occasional concerts. The official visitor app uses augmented reality to show how rooms looked in the early twentieth century. Opening hours change with the season, so use the official site to plan, and book ahead in busy periods.

This house is one of the key examples of Modernisme, and it fits naturally with a walk along Passeig de Gràcia, which also has La Pedrera, another Gaudí building, as well as the neighbouring Casa Amatller and Casa Lleó Morera, which form the so-called Block of Discord. Sagrada Família and Park Güell show different sides of the same architect.