Barcelona Guide
El Raval
Palau Güell
Address: c/Nou de la Rambla 3
Opening time: Tues– Sat 10am–2.30pm
Price: free
Telephone: 933 173 974
El Raval's outstanding building, the Palau Güell, is an extraordinary townhouse designed by the young Antoni Gaudí for wealthy shipowner and industrialist Eusebi Güell i Bacigalupi. Commissioned in 1885 as an extension of the Güell family's house located on the Ramblas, it was later the first modern building to be declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. While restoration continues the house is only partially open (and there's no access at present to the famous roof terrace), but even the dramatic facade is worth walking past to see – there's usually a gaggle of visitors trying to take a decent snap from the confines of the narrow street.
At a time when architects sought to conceal the iron supports within buildings, Gaudí turned them to his advantage, displaying them as decorative features in the grand rooms on the main floor, which are lined with dark marble hewn from the Güell family quarries. Columns, arches and ceilings are all shaped, carved and twisted in an elaborate style that was to become the hallmark of Gaudí's later works. Even the basement stables bear Gaudí's distinct touch, a forest of brick capitals and arches that with a touch of imagination become mushrooms and palms. Meanwhile the roof terrace culminates in a fantastical series of chimneys decorated with swirling patterns made from fragments of glazed tile, glass and earthenware. The family rarely ventured up here – it was the servants instead who were exposed to the fullest flight of Gaudí's fantasy as they hung the washing out on lines hung from chimney to chimney.
The building is under long-term restoration, which isn't expected to be completed until 2010. At the time of writing, there was free access to view the facade, ground floor and part of the basement, but with limited hours and limited numbers allowed in at any one time, expect to queue or be given a specific time-slot.