Description
Casa Batlló is the house on Barcelona's Passeig de Gràcia that Antoni Gaudí turned, in 1904-06, into a dream of bones, scales and water: a rippling front of colored tiles, mask-like balconies and a roof like the back of a dragon. Locals call it the House of Bones.
The reason for the fireworks was rivalry. Passeig de Gràcia was the city's most fashionable boulevard, and its rich families fought to build the finest house on it. Next door, a chocolate maker had added a Flemish stepped gable. A few doors down, Domènech i Montaner had been hired. The textile industrialist Josep Batlló called Gaudí.
Batlló wanted to tear down the dull 1877 building. Gaudí convinced him that remaking it was enough. The block earned the nickname Illa de la Discòrdia, the Block of Discord, for the clash of four very different houses.
The façade shimmers in golden orange turning to greenish blue, made of broken ceramic tiles. The balconies look like skulls, the columns of the main floor like limbs, and some people see the whole as a pond of water lilies.
Above, the roof arches like a scaly back, and a turret topped with a cross is said by many to be the lance of Saint George, Catalonia's patron saint, plunged into the dragon. Gaudí said there are no straight lines in nature, so he used almost none.
Inside, the light well runs through the middle of the house. Its walls are deep blue at the top and paler below, so that light falls evenly on every floor, and Gaudí meant it to feel like the bottom of the sea.
On the main floor look for the mushroom-shaped fireplace in a small nook. At the very top the loft, once the laundry and storage area, is white and quiet, with sixty catenary arches like the ribcage of an animal.
In 1906 the city shortlisted the house for its prize for the year's best building. It went to another architect. The family kept the house until 1954, when an insurance company moved in, and in 1993 was bought by the Bernat family, of Chupa Chups lollipops, who restored it.
Don't miss
• The façade.
• The light well.
• The loft.
• The main floor's fireplace nook.
Did you know?
• Barcelona's nickname for it was "house of yawns" as well as House of Bones.
• It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.
• In 1984 the façade was lit up during the festival of La Mercè.
The reason for the fireworks was rivalry. Passeig de Gràcia was the city's most fashionable boulevard, and its rich families fought to build the finest house on it. Next door, a chocolate maker had added a Flemish stepped gable. A few doors down, Domènech i Montaner had been hired. The textile industrialist Josep Batlló called Gaudí.
Batlló wanted to tear down the dull 1877 building. Gaudí convinced him that remaking it was enough. The block earned the nickname Illa de la Discòrdia, the Block of Discord, for the clash of four very different houses.
The façade shimmers in golden orange turning to greenish blue, made of broken ceramic tiles. The balconies look like skulls, the columns of the main floor like limbs, and some people see the whole as a pond of water lilies.
Above, the roof arches like a scaly back, and a turret topped with a cross is said by many to be the lance of Saint George, Catalonia's patron saint, plunged into the dragon. Gaudí said there are no straight lines in nature, so he used almost none.
Inside, the light well runs through the middle of the house. Its walls are deep blue at the top and paler below, so that light falls evenly on every floor, and Gaudí meant it to feel like the bottom of the sea.
On the main floor look for the mushroom-shaped fireplace in a small nook. At the very top the loft, once the laundry and storage area, is white and quiet, with sixty catenary arches like the ribcage of an animal.
In 1906 the city shortlisted the house for its prize for the year's best building. It went to another architect. The family kept the house until 1954, when an insurance company moved in, and in 1993 was bought by the Bernat family, of Chupa Chups lollipops, who restored it.
Don't miss
• The façade.
• The light well.
• The loft.
• The main floor's fireplace nook.
Did you know?
• Barcelona's nickname for it was "house of yawns" as well as House of Bones.
• It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.
• In 1984 the façade was lit up during the festival of La Mercè.