Casa Batllo in Barcelona – history, photo, description, opening hours, prices 2021, map
Speaking of architecture, one cannot miss the name of Antoni Gaudí. Moreover, by saying Gaudí, they begin to talk about design and conceptual architecture in general. The “modern” style can only be illustrated by the creations of a Catalan. One of the contenders for beatification (canonization by the Catholic Church) is not yet a saint, but he is pure, like a child playing with wet sand on the ocean shore. The energy of a man passionate and obsessed with fantasy froze in his creations.
History of construction and reconstruction
Barcelona textile manufacturer Josep Ballo y Casanovas needed an architectural innovator: his 1877 apartment building, far from dilapidated, was eclipsed by competitors – successful entrepreneurs Lleo Morera and Amallo. They built luxurious neo-Gothic high-rise buildings side by side. The property of Mr. Batlló, well-known in the city, looked shamefully unprepossessing.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the demand for all sorts of “neo-” styles was spurred on by the handsome pavilions of the Paris World Exhibition (1878) and others that followed it. They were built of glass, openwork cast-iron trusses, with the obligatory palace scope. The sources for rethinking the tasks of architecture were declared to be all kinds of national and prehistoric – i.e. archaic. After a long dominance of the Hellenistic classics – a sharp unexpected turn.
In the neo-Gothic style, the neighbors of Batllo built their houses, moreover, with very expressive facades. Because of the race of neighbors to outdo each other, the square received another – unofficial name: “a place of contention.” Batllo invites the innovative architect Gaudi with a proposal: to build a new one on the foundation of an outdated house, but “so that no one else has this”.
Antonio, having fallen into the crucible of conjuncture, suddenly realized that he had the opportunity to create an author's object that would end up in textbooks and glorify him during his lifetime. With a chance of “one in a hundred” it was impossible to delay. The counter offer from Gaudi was this: not to demolish the building, but to modernize it. It took only 2 years to create a masterpiece (later a World Heritage Site, listed in 2005). The house was commissioned in 1906.
An example of the courage and talent of Gaudí
Two facades: internal and external. A deaf stairwell has been turned into a decorative ceramic panel with colored windows resembling yellow snake eyes. Zooforms are present everywhere, but not the bodies of creatures, but their insides. The planes of walls and ceilings have been transformed in the halls. Curvature is ubiquitous, the only exceptions being floors and door jambs on the hinge side.
Casa Batllu is extremely cozy. Despite the defiant forms, there is nothing purely formalistic in it. What bothered Gaudí the most was the dreary bypass corridors. Having given the elongated rectangular rooms a semblance of karst caves, the master with incredible courage illuminated the stair passages with lantern (upper) windows in the form of drops of spread fat. Gaudí was the first in the world to use a double-glazed window as a unit of masonry, lighting and a decorative element at the same time.
Seen at exhibitions, “glass bricks” (they were invented in the 1850s, but mass production was established only in 1934) are rethought from the functional side and aesthetic. The drawings were handed over to the work of the stained glass master and glassblower Jusepo Pelegri. Fifteen thousand elements of the most incredible configurations were molded according to the drawings by the ceramist Sebastian y Ribot. Tiles for stoves were cast by P.Pujol-i-Bausis. Manufacturers specially went to the island of Mallorca – to the famous center of majolica.
Everything, right down to the furniture, is a solid exclusive of the main author of the house (furniture is exhibited in the Gaudi Park Guell Museum). The new corridors are well ventilated with exits to the balconies (made in the form of carnival masks). The main façade blazes with multi-colored tiles – as if it reflects with flashes of fireworks. “Washed and weathered cavernousness” is observed in the outlines of windows, their bindings, in stained-glass windows, on protrusions-noses of bay windows on the slopes of a massive (with a built-in additional floor) mansard roof that does not have a single break. Barcelona residents call Monsarda the “dragon's carcass”.
Architectural features
After the reconstruction, Casa Batlló acquired a main staircase, a mezzanine floor with halls and an attic floor – a loft with access to the terrace from the courtyard. From here you have a magnificent view of the Montjuic mountain, the rough stones of which adorn the house inside and out. Any wall, if it was not bearing, was demolished at the direction of Gaudi. The so-called. dormer windows. But so that the hot sun of Spain would not pester, the windows were filled with stained glass, moreover, with the most unpretentious primitive pattern. Corrugated, thickened, faceted glasses create a rich saturated texture. Plots, visual motifs were deliberately avoided – such is the concept.
On the other hand, the utilitarian became unexpectedly decorative. The chimneys look like elf houses, the air ducts are wedged into the wall like coral polyps, the backsplash of the kitchen hearth is framed like a king's throne, and the roof terrace is lined with streamers of rainbow color. On the main staircase – instead of enclosing balusters – wooden hemispheres in the form of lotus petals. I even want to sit down on a stainless steel woodcutter: it is so well made.
Interior
Fanciful columns of totem poles adorn not only the exterior, but also the halls of the “house of discord”. The sandstone plaster composition is applied to the walls in a special way: glossy lines of a mesh pattern are pressed into the rough, not dried mortar. It looks like skin. The ocher of the sandstone contrasts with the blue glass of the stained glass and glaze, but softly, as in a landscape.
The elevator is still in operation.
It is made in the manner of a Chinese box – wooden, with a “flashlight” lid. The framed glass parapets on the stairway between the 6th and 7th floors are the author's futuristic leap into today. Whirlwind halls with a chandelier “Sun” – they generally look like a decoration for a modern 3D cartoon.
In the rooms, the presence of lambrequins and coattails around the windows was not initially implied. Stained-glass pediments made of bent wood “took away” earnings from curtain-makers. The solution is incredible: the role of the fabric is performed by rigid materials. Futuristic design at the time of Gaudí did not even flash in the cinema – and the creation with the name “house of bones” (the houses of Bale are called so) is thoroughly saturated with buildings from bio-, zoo-worlds, stuffed with UFO-ideas that are incredible even for today.
How far ahead of his time was the great Catalan? It can be said for sure that modern architects are still inspired by his ingenuity. The quaint Casa Batlló alone would be enough to become a classic of world architecture. But Gaudi built 5 more similar houses. I seized on the “lucky ticket” and worked with incredible zeal. He even depicted a metaphor for his stubbornness on the foundation: “I will lay the bones here, but I will finish,” which is why the skull is on the base.
The modernist experiment has not ended yet. After Batllo, the architect had enough strength for a lot. He was entrusted to build the Church of the Holy Family (“Sagrada Familia”) – the most unusual and majestic of the churches. Gaudi started it when he was still in his thirties, in 1882. He transferred experiments from house building to the construction site of his main offspring – a church 170 m high. The architect died in 1926 at the age of 74 on the way to the construction site.
Opening hours and ticket prices
The museum is private. The ticket price is 24.5€. Open from 9:00 to 21:00. Children under 7 years old – free of charge. They have long been accustomed to the endless stream of Russians here – just like their pronunciation. They overheard and began to call their attraction in a simplified way: “bal-o”.
Where is it located and how to get there
Passeig de Gracia, Eixample Passeig de Gracia (also called metro station), 43 in the Eixample district (cat. Eixample), Barcelona. To the metro station Passeig de Gracia leads the green line number 3 and number 4 – orange. The metro and the monument of architecture separates three quarters. Buses No. 7, 22, 24 bring you to the Pg de Gracia-Consell de Cent stop, you can get off at Pg. de Gra.