La Pedrera and Casa Batlló
Date: August 14, 2018
Location: Barcelona, Spain
B.A.Livin’ Savings: 7 euros: 3 euro on La Pedrera and 4 euro on Casa Batlló tickets
Antoni Gaudí was born in 1852 and studied architecture in Barcelona. Gaudí’s works have a one-of-a-kind style that was influenced by his passion of nature and religion. The majority of his work is in Barcelona and millions of people visit his work each year.
On August 14, 2018, I visited two of the houses Gaudí worked on from 1904 – 1912. Make sure you buy your tickets online to avoid the long lines to get into each of the buildings. Also, the online tickets are cheaper than the ticket office prices. I was able to save 7 euro by purchasing my tickets online.
To read about Antoni Gaudí’s earlier work check out the Palau Güell and Park Güell post.
La Pedrera
The first one I went to was Casa Milà, commonly known as La Pedrera. Gaudí built the building for Pere Milà during 1906 – 1912. I showed up about 10 – 15 minutes before my scheduled time and was able to get in. There was no line to wait in.
The building was built to be a family residence for Here Milà and his wife Roser Sigimón and also apartments to rent. This is the main entrance. The door is large enough for vehicles to go through as the building has places for carriages, horses and cars to park on the bottom floor. The garage was the first one ever in a residential building.
The staircase from the main entrance extended over the courtyard to the main floor where the Milà family lived.
The courtyard allowed for ventilation and light to reach the apartments. Wrought-ironwork was done for the railings.
This is from the roof looking down in to one of the courtyards. The building has two.
The roof has stairwells, chimneys and ventilation on it. All of the structures has a lot of curves. The larger structures are the stairwells.
The roof is also curved with stairs on it.
On the right is a stairwell and on the left is one of the ventilation towers for the attic.
This is a group of chimneys.
Some of the chimneys are a single column while others are three or four grouped together.
When the building was being completed, work on La Sagrada Família had begun. On one stairwell, a frame was made to highlight a view of La Sagrada Família.
For the attic, Gaudí used 270 catenary arches made of brick to support the roof terrace.
The catenary arch is lightweight, so Gaudí was able to avoid adding weight to the building and the arch supports itself.
Here is a model of La Pedrera.
This is a model of La Pedrera’s attic and the catenary arches.
After the roof and seeing furniture with knobs and handles designed by Gaudí, there is an apartment furnished for the early 20th century. The windows inside the apartment did not have straight edges.
The roof and courtyard of La Pedrera are nice, but while visiting you aren’t able to see most of the inside of the building. Of all the Gaudí museums I visited, this one was my least favorite.
Casa Batlló
After La Pedrera, I walk a short distance to Casa Batlló. Gaudí remodeled the building for Josep Batlló from 1904 – 1906.
When I made my online reservations, I booked the Casa Batlló entrance time one hour and 15 minutes after the La Pedrera time. When I got to Casa Batlló, I waited in a short line to enter. I didn’t pay the extra 5 euros to have the fastpass entry that allows you to walk right in at your designated time. There were a lot of people with fastpass that showed up who were all allowed in before me, but I waited less than 15 minutes before I was let in.
The entrance to the house was very busy but I was happy to find that the rooms were not overcrowded. The tour of Casa Batlló comes with an audio guide. The device, the size of a smart phone, also shows what the rooms looked like when they were being used. When I moved the device, it would show me that part of the room. This is the first audio guide I have used like this and I liked it a lot.
This is a fireplace in Casa Batlló with benches on each side to sit.
The main living room has a ceiling with lines coming together in the center.
This shows the level of detail that was put into the doors.
This is the back of the building viewed from the courtyard.
The door to the courtyard has two columns in the middle that lead to the dining room.
The building also has some apartments in it. This is the main staircase that goes up to the apartments.
Instead of numbering the apartments, they were given letters. This is a door to one of the apartments.
To allow light to reach all of the rooms there is a skylight.
To ensure an even distribution of the light, Gaudí made the tiles different shades of blue with darker shades at the top and lighter shades at the bottom. He also made the upper windows smaller. As you descend, the window becomes bigger to allow more light to enter.
Here is the roof looking over the skylight.
The roof also provides views of the decorated chimneys.
The attic had laundry rooms and storage areas for the tenants of the building.
If you are going to see one Gaudí house, I recommend Casa Batlló being the one. The entire place was fascinating and there is so much detail.
