Casa Batlló, Barcelona, Spain

Casa Batlló is a house at Passeig de Gràcia 43 in Barcelona that Antoni Gaudí completely remodelled in 1904–1906 for the textile industrialist Josep Batlló. The original building dated from 1877; Gaudí added a floor, reshaped the façade and the interiors and created one of the masterpieces of Catalan Modernisme. Since 2005 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Works of Antoni Gaudí”.

The façade shimmers with broken glass and ceramic discs, and its balconies look like masks or skulls, while the bone-like columns of the first floor gave the house its nickname, the “House of Bones”. The arched roof, covered in scale-like tiles, is often read as the back of a dragon, and the turret with its cross as the lance of Saint George, the patron saint of Catalonia.

Inside there are hardly any straight lines. The visit leads through the noble floor, where the Batlló family lived, with its main salon overlooking Passeig de Gràcia, then up the light well, whose tiles shade from pale to deep blue so that light is spread evenly, to the attic with its white catenary arches and the rooftop with its colourful chimneys. An audio guide with augmented reality is included.

Casa Batlló is open daily from 9:00 to 22:30. Prices change with demand: in 2026 a daytime adult ticket costs from €35 online, more at the ticket office, and children up to 12 enter free; night visits and concerts on the roof cost extra.

The house stands in the “Block of Discord”, next to Casa Amatller by Josep Puig i Cadafalch and close to Casa Lleó Morera by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, a few steps from Passeig de Gràcia metro station (lines L2, L3 and L4).