Gaudí: La Pedrera vs. Casa Casa Batlló
People say that whoever drinks water at the Canaletas Fountain, located at the beginning of the famous Ramblas, will return to the city. In a couple of days, it is impossible to visit the whole city, but you should definitely have 2 spots on your to do list: visit Gaudis famous “La Pedrera” and “Casa Batló”.
La Pedrera Casa Milà, popularly known as ” La Pedrera ”, it is a unique building built between 1906 and 1912 by the architect Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1984. Located in one of the most prestigious streets of Passeig de Gracia, which was originally built as a block of flats in the largest expansion of the city in what became a key bourgeois residential area. Casa Milà is a modernist building designed by Antoni Gaudí and it meant an absolute rupture with the schemes of its time. Next to the stone structure, the wrought iron balconies stand out. The building is the maximum representation of the curved line in the work of Gaudí. On the exterior, the sculptural undulating facade of grey stone stands out, decorated with iron balconies. Inside you have the feeling of having entered a fantasy world. Currently, the building is the headquarters of the Catalunya-La Pedrera Foundation.
Walking a few blocks down the avenue, you will reach “La Casa Batlló”, one of the main examples of modernist architecture in Barcelona. It was also built by Antoni Gaudí in 1904-1906 as an order of the textile industrialist Josep Batlló. The spectacular original facade is an icon of Barcelona and the design remains a masterpiece of form, color and light, anticipating the theory of rationalism 30 years before its time. It is a complete remodelling of an existing building, designed by the architect Emili Sala i Cortés, one of the masters of Gaudi, a reform with which he managed to convert the original construction into an authentic masterpiece. The picture of the facade if full of imagination and fantasy, it has become one of the most emblematic and photographed monuments of Barcelona.
I hope you enjoy this journey and appreciate the wonderful works of Gaudí! For more information and tickets: https://www.casabatllo.es/