Catalan Modernisme, street by street

Qualified in 1878, the son of a coppersmith, he thought of structure in volumes and curves (catenary arches, slanting columns) rather than in plans. His patron, the industrialist Eusebi Güell, gave him most of his early commissions. A devout Catholic, he devoted his last years to the Sagrada Família. Hit by a tram on 7 June 1926, he died three days later; 2026 is the centenary Gaudí Year.

• Casa Vicens 1883–1888
• Pavellons Güell 1884–1887
• Palau Güell 1886–1890
• Torre Bellesguard 1900–1909
• Park Güell 1900–1914
• Casa Batlló 1904–1906
• Casa Milà, La Pedrera 1906–1912
• Crypt of the Colònia Güell 1908–1914
• Sagrada Família 1883 – ongoing

The movement’s theorist. His 1878 article “In Search of a National Architecture” laid its foundations. Director of the School of Architecture (Gaudí was his student), member of parliament, a figure of political Catalanism. He embraced iron and exposed brick and put an army of craftsmen to work. His signature is a profusion of ceramics, stained glass and floral sculpture.

• Editorial Montaner i Simon, now Fundació Tàpies 1881–1886
• Castell dels Tres Dragons 1888
• Casa Lleó Morera 1902–1906
• Hospital de Sant Pau 1902–1930
• Palau de la Música Catalana 1905–1908
• Casa Fuster 1908–1911

Architect, archaeologist and historian of Romanesque art, he presided over the Mancomunitat de Catalunya from 1917 to 1923. His Modernisme is learned: Flemish stepped gables, Gothic turrets, northern medieval references. Exiled during the Civil War, he ended his life shut out of public commissions.

• Casa Martí, Els Quatre Gats 1896
• Casa Amatller 1898–1900
• Casa Macaya 1899–1901
• Casa Terrades, de les Punxes 1903–1905
• Palau del Baró de Quadras 1904–1906
• Fàbrica Casaramona, now CaixaForum 1911

The collaborator history long erased. He made the trencadís of the Park Güell bench and the wrought-iron balconies of La Pedrera. He also produced some of the colours of Casa Batlló. His own work, mainly in Sant Joan Despí and the Camp de Tarragona, has an almost surrealist freedom, built from salvaged materials.

• Serpentine bench, Park Güell 1909–1914
• Torre de la Creu, Sant Joan Despí 1913–1916
• Can Negre, Sant Joan Despí 1914–1930
• Casa Planells, Barcelona 1923–1924

The most prolific of them all, with several hundred buildings. Architect to the bourgeoisie and the Church, he moved between eclecticism, neo-Gothic and a tempered Modernisme. Less inventive than Gaudí, he nonetheless shaped more of the city’s real landscape, including its waterfront.

• Palace of Justice, with J. Domènech i Estapà 1887–1908
• Port customs house, Duana Nova 1896–1902
• Casa Arnús, El Pinar 1903
• Temple of the Sacred Heart, Tibidabo 1902–1961

Gaudí’s right-hand man for more than twenty years, he never obtained his diploma: his designs had to be signed by others. His territory was Gràcia, then an independent town, where he built markets and houses for the lower middle class.

• Mercat de la Llibertat (decoration), Gràcia 1888
• Casa Rubinat, Gràcia 1909
• Bodegas Güell, Garraf (attribution disputed with Gaudí) 1895–1901

A forest-basilica: tree-like columns, stained glass that shifts from cool blue to orange with the hour. The Tower of Jesus Christ (172.5 m) has made it the tallest church in the world since 2026.

Address

Carrer de Mallorca 401

Getting there

Metro Sagrada Família (L2, L5)

Duration

1 hr 30; 2 hr with a tower

Price

≈ €26 basilica, ≈ €36 with tower (official 2026). Resellers charge €33 and more.

Opening hours

Nov–Feb: 9:00–18:00, Sundays from 10:30. No ticket office on site.

Highlights

Nativity façade (the only one completed in Gaudí’s lifetime), crypt, museum and funicular models.

In this guide : Sagrada Família, against the light →

An existing building remodelled into a sea creature: mask-like balconies, a façade of scales, a roof like a dragon’s spine. The interior contains almost no right angles.

Address

Passeig de Gràcia 43

Getting there

Metro Passeig de Gràcia (L2, L3, L4)

Duration

1 hr to 1 hr 30

Price

From €29; Blue ≈ €35, Silver ≈ €40–43; +€4 to €15 at the ticket office

Opening hours

Daily, 8:30–22:30

Highlights

Light well graded from dark blue to white, noble salon, Dragon terrace.

In this guide : Casa Batlló, the house of light →

Gaudí’s last civil work. An undulating stone façade with no load-bearing wall: pillars free the floor plans, anticipating 20th-century architecture.

Address

Passeig de Gràcia 92

Getting there

Metro Diagonal (L3, L5)

Duration

1 hr 30

Price

Essential from €25 online (€29 on site). Combined tickets at €42 with Sant Pau or the Palau de la Música.

Opening hours

Winter (2 Nov 2026 – 25 Feb 2027): 9:00–18:30; evening visits 19:00–23:00. Closed 25 Dec.

Highlights

Roof with “warrior” chimneys, attic of 270 catenary arches, period apartment.

In this guide : La Pedrera, the house without load-bearing walls →

A garden city for the upper bourgeoisie that failed commercially (two houses sold) and was bought by the city. What remains is the belvedere square, the dragon on the stairs and the hypostyle hall.

Address

Carrer d’Olot, Gràcia

Getting there

Bus 24 to the entrance; or metro Lesseps / Vallcarca (L3), then a 15 min climb

Duration

1 hr 30 in the monumental zone

Price

€18; €13.50 ages 7–12 and over 65; free under 7

Opening hours

From 9:30; closes ≈ 17:30 in winter, 19:30 in summer

Highlights

Serpentine trencadís bench (Jujol), ceiling medallions in the hypostyle hall, rough-stone viaducts.

In this guide : Park Güell, the failed housing estate →

The only concert hall listed by UNESCO, lit by daylight. The inverted skylight in the ceiling is a stained-glass sun; the stage muses emerge waist-deep from the wall.

Address

Carrer Palau de la Música 4-6

Getting there

Metro Urquinaona (L1, L4)

Duration

50 min guided tour

Price

Guided tour €22; €16 under 35 and over 65; free under 10. Audio guide around €18–24 depending on the option.

Opening hours

Daytime visits, roughly 9:30–15:30

Highlights

Central skylight by Antoni Rigalt, sculptures by Pau Gargallo and Miquel Blay, floral mosaic pillars.

In this guide : Palau de la Música Catalana, the glass hall →

The largest Art Nouveau ensemble in the world. A hospital conceived as a garden city: separate pavilions for air and light, linked by more than a kilometre of tunnels. A working hospital until 2009.

Address

C/ Sant Antoni Maria Claret 167

Getting there

Metro Sant Pau / Dos de Maig (L5); Guinardó (L4)

Duration

1 hr 30 to 2 hr

Price

€18 (€17 after 14:00); reduced €12.60; free under 12

Opening hours

Daily, daytime; check the website

Highlights

Administration pavilion and its pink ceramic vaults, tunnels, Sant Rafael pavilion restored as a hospital ward.

In this guide : Sant Pau, the garden hospital →

Eusebi Güell’s town palace in El Raval. Here Gaudí is still dark and monumental: a central hall capped by a dome pierced with points of light like a starry sky.

Address

Carrer Nou de la Rambla 3-5

Getting there

Metro Liceu (L3)

Duration

1 hr 15

Price

≈ €15 (2026 price noted); occasional open days

Opening hours

Tuesday–Sunday; closed Monday

Highlights

Underground stables with mushroom-shaped brick columns, the salon dome, twenty trencadís chimneys on the roof.

Gaudí’s first house, built for a tile manufacturer. Mudéjar inspiration, a green-and-white chequerboard, an oriental smoking room. Here is the young Gaudí before the curve.

Address

Carrer de les Carolines 18–24, Gràcia

Getting there

Metro Fontana (L3)

Duration

1 hr to 1 hr 30

Price

≈ €20; reduced barely €2 less; free under 11

Opening hours

Closes 18:00, last entry 17:00

Highlights

Smoking room with plaster stalactites, French marigold tiles, terrace over the rooftops of Gràcia.

In this guide : Casa Vicens, Gaudí’s first house →

The laboratory of the Sagrada Família. Here, using a model of weighted strings, Gaudí tested the slanting columns and vaults he would later reuse. Only the crypt was built, at the heart of a textile workers’ village.

Address

C/ Claudi Güell 6, Santa Coloma de Cervelló

Getting there

FGC from Plaça Espanya, Llobregat–Anoia line, Colònia Güell stop (≈ 20 min)

Duration

2 to 3 hr with the village

Price

€10 to €13 with audio guide depending on the option; free under 10

Opening hours

Winter: weekdays 10:00–17:00, weekends 10:00–15:00; often closed Monday

Highlights

Rough basalt columns, butterfly-wing stained glass, hyperboloid porch, workers’ houses by Berenguer and Rubió.

A neo-Gothic castle built on the ruins of the palace of King Martí l’Humà, the last king of the House of Barcelona. A very personal work, it is still partly lived in by the Guilera family.

Address

Carrer de Bellesguard 16-20, Sant Gervasi

Getting there

FGC Avinguda Tibidabo, then bus 196; or a 20 min climb

Duration

1 hr (guided tour ≈ 40 min)

Price

From €12 with audio guide; ≈ €20 guided tour

Opening hours

Tuesday–Sunday, mainly mornings; check

Highlights

Attic of brick arches, four-armed cross, trencadís dragon bench, view over the whole city from the terrace.

Gatehouse pavilions and stables of the Güell summer estate. Gaudí’s first use of trencadís, and a wrought-iron gate in the shape of a dragon with gaping jaws.

Address

Avinguda de Pedralbes 7

Getting there

Metro Palau Reial or Maria Cristina (L3)

Duration

15 min from outside; 50 min on a guided tour

Price

Exterior free; interior depending on opening

Opening hours

Restoration in phases since 2015; weekday opening announced, to be confirmed

Highlights

Dragon Gate, the stable dome, Mudéjar influences in brick.

Next door to Casa Batlló, it receives a tenth of the visitors. Yet it is the only house on the Block of Discord that keeps the furniture, kitchen and bathrooms of the chocolate maker Antoni Amatller.

Address

Passeig de Gràcia 41

Getting there

Metro Passeig de Gràcia (L2, L3, L4)

Duration

1 hr

Price

≈ €20 with audio guide (students €15), chocolate tasting included; free under 7

Opening hours

Tuesday–Sunday 10:00–18:00; closed Monday

Highlights

Flemish stepped gable, sculptures by Eusebi Arnau (Saint George, musician animals), Amatller’s photographic studio.

Three houses for three sisters, fused into a castle on a triangular block, with six conical turrets. The ceramic panels tell the legend of Saint George.

Address

Avinguda Diagonal 420

Getting there

Metro Diagonal (L3, L5) or Verdaguer (L4, L5)

Duration

20 min from outside

Price

Façade free; interior visits suspended or irregular, café on the ground floor

Opening hours

Façade 24/7

Highlights

Panel “Sant Patró de Catalunya, torneu-nos la llibertat”, ironwork, the Diagonal–Rosselló corner.

The former Montaner i Simon publishing house: exposed brick and a visible iron structure, the first building in the Eixample to dare this mix. Today a museum of contemporary art.

Address

Carrer d’Aragó 255

Getting there

Metro Passeig de Gràcia (L2, L3, L4)

Duration

1 hr

Price

Around €15, to be checked

Opening hours

Closed Monday

Highlights

Tàpies’s sculpture “Núvol i cadira” crowning the façade, the original iron-and-wood library.

A villa of brick, wood and ceramics wedged between the apartment blocks of the Gran Via, a survivor of an Eixample once also made of private houses. Saved from demolition by local residents in the 1970s.

Address

Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 491

Getting there

Metro Urgell (L1) or Rocafort (L1)

Duration

30 min

Price

Free (civic centre)

Opening hours

Civic centre hours, mainly weekdays

Highlights

Carved wooden eaves, staircase, temporary exhibitions.

Gràcia’s wrought-iron market hall, renovated in 2009. People still do their shopping here: Modernisme in everyday use, with no ticket and no crowds.

Address

Plaça de la Llibertat 27, Gràcia

Getting there

FGC Gràcia; metro Fontana (L3)

Duration

30 min, plus lunch at a counter

Price

Free

Opening hours

Monday–Saturday, mainly mornings; closed Sunday

Highlights

Iron roof structure, Gràcia’s coat of arms in iron, stalls of Catalan produce.

Two façades for one building. On the Diagonal side, sober, bourgeois stone. On the Còrsega side, an explosion of green wooden galleries and ceramics: the rear façade is the real one.

Address

Avinguda Diagonal 442 / Carrer de Còrsega 316

Getting there

Metro Diagonal (L3, L5)

Duration

15 min

Price

Free, from the street

Opening hours

Always accessible

Highlights

The undulating galleries on Còrsega, a direct influence of Casa Batlló.

The ground floor of Casa Martí, Puig’s first work. The café of the avant-garde, where Picasso first exhibited in 1900 and whose menu he drew.

Address

Carrer de Montsió 3 bis

Getting there

Metro Catalunya or Urquinaona

Duration

Long enough for a coffee or a meal

Price

Food and drink; a tourist restaurant, priced accordingly

Opening hours

Restaurant hours

Highlights

Neo-Gothic façade with sculptures by Eusebi Arnau, a room of wood and tiles.

In this guide : Barri Gòtic on foot →

Nicknamed “Casa dels Ous”, the egg house: five interlocking cylinders topped with trencadís domes. Jujol at his most radical, 10 km from the centre.

Address

Passeig Canalies 12, Sant Joan Despí

Getting there

Rodalies or Tram T3 to Sant Joan Despí

Duration

1 hr with Can Negre nearby

Price

Free from the street

Opening hours

Private property; view from the pavement

Highlights

Scaled domes, then Can Negre, a masia façade reinvented by Jujol.