Seashells, waves and dragon scales: Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece at Casa Batlló
We had planned to spend the day in one of the masterpieces created by the Barcelona architect Antoni Gaudí, and wound up in another. It was a real lemonade-out-of-lemons experience, and it included one of my all-time vacation moments.
Weeks before our trip to Spain, I booked tickets for Sagrada Familia, the awe-inspiring cathedral Gaudí designed long before his death in 1926, and which to this day is still under construction. We have been there before, Martha twice. My visit there in 2018 was memorable, and I wanted to see it again — and also to see how much has changed in the intervening years.
The visit was not to be. I received an email the day before saying that a “private event” had caused the cancellation for our visit times, and that we were receiving a refund.
Well, that was disappointing. Eight years ago, I had become a bit obsessed with Gaudí’s work, visiting not just the cathedral, but Park Guell and Casa Milà, and buying books about his life and work, which seemed to be decades ahead of his time. I still marvel how one person, working more than a century ago, could not only accomplish so much, but could envision structures, furniture, everything, with so much zest and energy.
The photo above is of me and a sculpture of Gaudí at Park Guell, an ambitious but abandoned residential project that has become a cherished park in Barcelona.
Without our anchor event of the day, Martha and I realized this was an opportunity to see another of Gaudí’s famous works: Casa Batlló.
This was a home that was not so much renovated as completely redesigned for a prosperous Barcelona family in the early 20th century. From top to bottom, the home incorporates themes of nature, especially the ocean.
The doors undulate, the colours shift to Mediterranean themes, the building (designed for a family on the main floor, with ample apartments above) used brilliant design themes to move air around decades before electrical air conditioning.
We moved from room to room and floor to floor with other vistors (Gaudí has long been a major tourist attraction in Barcelona). In the photos above and below, you can see I was not the only one compelled to take a photo.
More than 120 years after the design, the house still seems to be alive. Gaudí did not much care for straight lines, and his affinity for nature is invested in every corner. As we were going down one corridor, Martha noticed that an ordinary wall had gentle curves.
The decor in many rooms felt like a visit to the seashore.
Looking up into the atrium — which Gaudí understood could move light and fresh air around — you can see how decoration was central to the maritime themes. I found it impossible to not seek out all the nooks and crannies.
Casa Batlló has tours starting every 15 minutes; you can proceed at your own pace, and we found it useful to have an audio guide that complemented many of the rooms and design features.
The packages differ. It’s a little bit more of a splurge, but I would definitely recommend getting access to the roof.
First thing: go back to the first photo, and look at the top. The design imagines a dragon atop the whole house.
Once there, you see that the chimneys have been grouped together, and the mosaic-rich design is so intense that you may not realize there was a practical function to these clusters of towers.
There’s a bar on the roof, too, and this is where I had a great vacation moment.
We ordered some vermut (more on the wonders of Barcelona’s love of vermouth here) and some snacks — anchovy-filled olives for Martha, crisp and salty chips for me — and settled in at a table.
Everything was perfect. Clear skies, warm air, delicious drinks, surroundings that seemed to lift us out of the regular world.
I exhaled and drank it all in.
Sagrada Familia will have to wait. As disappointed as we were to have our tickets cancelled at nearly the last minute, we returned to a familiar refrain we say when we love a place that offers more than we can see: “We’ll just have to come back.”
One last bit.
Before we left Casa Battló, we were brought into a room with a very 21st-century immersive display inspired by Gaudí’s design themes. Here’s a taste of what it was like.