Casa Batlló

Dragon-back roof of Casa Batlló against a deep blue sky, its scale-like ceramic tiles shading from pink and violet into blue and green, a row of orange ceramic spheres along the ridge and a small arched window
Location: Barcelona, SpainType: HouseYear: 1906Architect: Antoni GaudíPhotographer: David Cardelús, Ignasi de Solá-Morales, Claudia Mauriño, Massimo Catarinella
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Casa Batlló by Antoni Gaudí

Casa Batlló is the house on Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona that Antoni Gaudí transformed between 1904 and 1906 for the textile industrialist Josep Batlló i Casanovas. Behind its shimmering façade of broken glass and ceramic, bone-like stone columns and mask-shaped balconies lies one of the most complete works of Catalan Modernisme, in which Gaudí shaped everything from the structure to the door handles. Known locally as the House of Bones or the House of the Dragon, it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005 and is now open to the public as a house museum.

Facade of Casa Batlló on Passeig de Gràcia rising between plainer neighbours, its bone-like stone columns, mask balconies and colourful mosaic crowned by the dragon-scale roof and a cross-topped turret, trees along the pavement

From an 1877 apartment house to the Block of Discord

The building began as an unremarkable eclectic apartment house of 1877 by Emili Sala Cortés, one of Gaudí’s professors. Batlló bought it in 1903 intending to knock it down, but Gaudí persuaded him that a renovation would be enough. It stands on the stretch of Passeig de Gràcia known as the Illa de la Discòrdia, the Block of Discord beside Puig i Cadafalch’s Casa Amatller and Domènech i Montaner’s Casa Lleó Morera. Gaudí rebuilt the lower floors in undulating Montjuïc sandstone, added new storeys and covered the rest of the façade in trencadís and 330 polychrome ceramic discs designed with Josep Maria Jujol, rippling from golden orange into greenish blues.

Close-up of the Casa Batlló facade covered in trencadís of broken glass and ceramic in cobalt, green, ochre and white, scattered with round polychrome ceramic discs

A façade of the sea and the way to the Noble Floor

Salvador Dalí saw in it “a house according to the shapes of the sea, representing the waves on a calm day.” Gaudí, who held that “there are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature,” directed the work on the façade from the street, without precise plans. Inside, the communal lobby leads through a modernist iron grille into the Batlló family’s private entrance hall, with skylights like tortoise shells and vaulted, curving walls. From there a sculptural oak staircase, its handrail curling like an animal’s spine, climbs to the Noble Floor, a residence of more than 700 square metres where the family lived.

Sculptural oak staircase curling up to the Noble Floor of Casa Batlló beneath a mottled grey ceiling, with two blue-green ceramic urns on iron stands and a small oval window

The Noble Floor gallery over Passeig de Gràcia

On the Passeig de Gràcia side, the main salon opens into a great gallery that projects over the street, built, in Casa Batlló’s words, “for seeing and being seen.” Slender stone columns frame oak windows set with stained glass and discs of blue glass, and the large oak doors between the rooms take organic shapes inset with coloured glass. Above, the plaster ceiling swirls into a whirlpool with the lamp at its centre, an undulating surface that alludes to the power of the sea.

Noble Floor salon of Casa Batlló looking out through the gallery over Passeig de Gràcia, bone-like stone columns and arches framing oak windows with blue glass discs, curtains and a glossy parquet floor

The mushroom fireplace, the courtyard and the third floor

Beside the salon is Josep Batlló’s office, whose mushroom-shaped fireplace sits in a tiled alcove with a bench on either side, a cosy corner for courting couples. At the back, the family dining room opens onto a private courtyard that Gaudí conceived as a vertical garden of glass, ceramics and iron. Its rear façade was fully restored in 2024 under architect Xavier Villanueva, revealing the original dark stucco, white ironwork and green woodwork. In May 2026 the third floor, the last original residence preserved from Gaudí’s transformation and long inhabited by Batlló descendants, opened to the public.

Office on the Noble Floor of Casa Batlló with a mushroom-shaped fireplace alcove set into a golden wall, stained-glass oak windows and doors, a crystal chandelier and a red parquet floor

The blue-tiled light well

At the heart of the house is the light well, which Gaudí enlarged, turning one into two, to bring daylight and air to every room. It is lined with tiles in shades of blue, darkest at the top and paler towards the bottom, while the windows grow larger as they descend, so that the light is evenly shared and the shaft reads as a single colour from below. Wooden slats beneath the windows open for ventilation, textured glass on each landing turns the tiles into rippling water, and the original wooden lift cabin still runs up the centre.

Light well of Casa Batlló lined with cobalt and pale blue diamond-patterned tiles around wooden windows, seen through a rippled glass balustrade with wooden rails

Attic arches, the dragon roof and completion

Under the roof, the former laundry attic is a white space of sixty catenary arches that evoke the ribs of an animal. Above it the roof rises into the dragon’s back, scaled in metallic ceramic tiles from green through deep blue and violet to pink, beside a turret crowned with a four-armed cross often read as Saint George’s lance, and four clusters of polychrome chimneys stop smoke blowing back inside. Completed in 1906, Casa Batlló later housed insurance offices before the Bernat family bought it in 1993 and opened it to visitors in 2002. The photography is by David Cardelús, Ignasi de Solá-Morales, Claudia Mauriño and Massimo Catarinella.

Casa Batlló gallery

Dragon-back roof of Casa Batlló against a deep blue sky, its scale-like ceramic tiles shading from pink and violet into blue and green, a row of orange ceramic spheres along the ridge and a small arched windowTwo white skull-like balconies on the facade of Casa Batlló against shimmering trencadís of blue, green and gold glass and ceramic discs, with grey wooden shutters behindFacade of Casa Batlló on Passeig de Gràcia rising between plainer neighbours, its bone-like stone columns, mask balconies and colourful mosaic crowned by the dragon-scale roof and a cross-topped turret, trees along the pavementGround floor lobby of Casa Batlló with vaulted cream walls and blue and white tiles, a wrought-iron grille doorway on the left and a stone staircase with a carved wooden handrail rising beneath an archClose-up of the Casa Batlló facade covered in trencadís of broken glass and ceramic in cobalt, green, ochre and white, scattered with round polychrome ceramic discsLanding of the Noble Floor at Casa Batlló with smooth curving plaster walls, an oval window and an arched oak and glass doorway, a round porthole window above and a parquet floorSculptural oak staircase curling up to the Noble Floor of Casa Batlló beneath a mottled grey ceiling, with two blue-green ceramic urns on iron stands and a small oval windowWhirlpool-shaped plaster ceiling of the Noble Floor salon at Casa Batlló swirling around a round gilded lamp, above a carved oak doorway and parquet floorNoble Floor salon of Casa Batlló looking out through the gallery over Passeig de Gràcia, bone-like stone columns and arches framing oak windows with blue glass discs, curtains and a glossy parquet floorThird-floor landing of Casa Batlló with a carved oak door in a blue tile surround, rippled glass panels and wooden handrails onto the cobalt-tiled light well and a white staircaseOffice on the Noble Floor of Casa Batlló with a mushroom-shaped fireplace alcove set into a golden wall, stained-glass oak windows and doors, a crystal chandelier and a red parquet floorLanding beside the light well at Casa Batlló with white marble stairs, a curving oak handrail and a wavy glass balustrade before walls of blue tilesLight well of Casa Batlló lined with cobalt and pale blue diamond-patterned tiles around wooden windows, seen through a rippled glass balustrade with wooden railsTop of the light well at Casa Batlló beneath a glazed skylight, with tiers of rippled glass balustrades, white stairs and walls of blue diamond-patterned tilesWhite catenary arches in the attic of Casa Batlló curving like the ribs of an animal above a black and white patterned tile floorFour chimneys of Casa Batlló topped with ceramic flowers and spheres above a mosaic crown of orange and blue discs with a barred oval window, against a blue skyRear facade crown of Casa Batlló with a wavy parapet of coloured ceramic discs and flowers, arched openings below and clusters of chimneys behind, over the Eixample rooftopsRestored rear facade of Casa Batlló above its private courtyard, with dark stucco walls, white openwork iron balconies, a mosaic crown and chimneys, and planters on the patterned courtyard floor

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