Description
The Palau de la Música Catalana is Barcelona's great modernista concert hall, tucked into the narrow streets of the old town: a jewel box of mosaics, stained glass and sculpture, and still a working venue, where more than half a million people a year come to hear anything from symphonies to jazz.
Lluís Domènech i Montaner designed it for the Orfeó Català, a choral society at the heart of the Catalan cultural revival. It was built between 1905 and 1908, and in 1997 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site together with his Hospital de Sant Pau.
The façade is a riot of red brick, colored tiles and glass. On the corner, Miguel Blay's sculpture group stands for Catalan music, and on the balcony two rows of columns are each covered in a different pattern of glazed floral tiles. Above them sit busts of Palestrina, Bach and Beethoven.
The real surprise is the concert hall, which seats about 2,200 people. Its side walls are almost entirely stained glass, so daylight floods in, and from the ceiling hangs Antoni Rigalt's stained-glass skylight: an inverted dome of gold surrounded by blue, a sun in the sky ringed by a choir of young women.
The sculpture around the stage tells a story of music. On the left, a bust of the choir director Anselm Clavé stands under a stone tree, above girls singing a Catalan folk song. On the right, Wagner's Valkyries gallop out of the wall above a bust of Beethoven: folk music and classical music meet at the top of the arch.
Behind the stage, the 18 muses are half sculpture, half mosaic. Their upper bodies, by Eusebi Arnau, lean out of the wall, while their skirts are mosaics by Lluís Bru. Each one plays a different instrument and wears different clothes.
Upstairs, the Lluís Millet hall gives the best view of the façade's tiled columns, far closer than from the cramped street below. Down in the foyer, a bar stands between massive brick pillars, lit from behind by stained glass.
All that glass has a price: the walls carry sound like drum skins, and critics have grumbled about the acoustics for a century. The stage has still seen many world premieres, Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez among them, in 1940.
Don't miss
• The stained-glass skylight.
• The muses behind the stage.
• The Valkyries over the stage.
• The tiled columns of the façade.
Did you know?
• The concert hall is lit entirely by natural light during the day.
• The top of the façade holds a large mosaic of the Orfeó Català's singers, almost impossible to see from the narrow street below.
Lluís Domènech i Montaner designed it for the Orfeó Català, a choral society at the heart of the Catalan cultural revival. It was built between 1905 and 1908, and in 1997 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site together with his Hospital de Sant Pau.
The façade is a riot of red brick, colored tiles and glass. On the corner, Miguel Blay's sculpture group stands for Catalan music, and on the balcony two rows of columns are each covered in a different pattern of glazed floral tiles. Above them sit busts of Palestrina, Bach and Beethoven.
The real surprise is the concert hall, which seats about 2,200 people. Its side walls are almost entirely stained glass, so daylight floods in, and from the ceiling hangs Antoni Rigalt's stained-glass skylight: an inverted dome of gold surrounded by blue, a sun in the sky ringed by a choir of young women.
The sculpture around the stage tells a story of music. On the left, a bust of the choir director Anselm Clavé stands under a stone tree, above girls singing a Catalan folk song. On the right, Wagner's Valkyries gallop out of the wall above a bust of Beethoven: folk music and classical music meet at the top of the arch.
Behind the stage, the 18 muses are half sculpture, half mosaic. Their upper bodies, by Eusebi Arnau, lean out of the wall, while their skirts are mosaics by Lluís Bru. Each one plays a different instrument and wears different clothes.
Upstairs, the Lluís Millet hall gives the best view of the façade's tiled columns, far closer than from the cramped street below. Down in the foyer, a bar stands between massive brick pillars, lit from behind by stained glass.
All that glass has a price: the walls carry sound like drum skins, and critics have grumbled about the acoustics for a century. The stage has still seen many world premieres, Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez among them, in 1940.
Don't miss
• The stained-glass skylight.
• The muses behind the stage.
• The Valkyries over the stage.
• The tiled columns of the façade.
Did you know?
• The concert hall is lit entirely by natural light during the day.
• The top of the façade holds a large mosaic of the Orfeó Català's singers, almost impossible to see from the narrow street below.