Barcelona Guide
Sant Pere
Palau de la Música Catalana
Opening time: Guided tours daily 10am–3.30pm, plus Easter week & Aug 10am–6pm, in English on the hour
Price: €10
Telephone: 902 475 485
Website: www.palaumusica.org
Stumble upon modernista architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner's stupendous Palau de la Música Catalana from narrow c/Sant Pere Més Alt and it barely seems to have enough space to breathe. The concert hall was built in 1908 for the Orfeo Català choral group (it's still privately owned) and made an immediate statement of nationalistic intent. Its bare brick structure is smothered in tiles and mosaics, typical of modernisme, with the highly elaborate facade resting on three great columns, like elephant's legs. The corner sculpture, by Miquel Blay, represents Catalan popular song, its allegorical figures protected by a strident Sant Jordi.
There's little restraint inside either, as Domènech i Montaner strove to make his concert hall a veritable "box of light", achieved by a mighty bulbous stained-glass skylight capping the second-storey auditorium – contemporary critics claimed it to be an engineering impossibility. Sculptures of the Muses ring the main stage, peering down on the performers, while allegorical decoration is everywhere, from the sculpted red and white roses in the colours of the Catalan flag to the representations of music and nature in the glistening stained glass.
Successive extensions and interior remodelling have opened up the original site – the Petit Palau offers a smaller auditorium space, while to the side an enveloping glass facade provides the main public access to the box office, terrace restaurant and foyer bar. This is where you come to buy tickets for the very popular fifty-minute-long guided tours of the original interior – you can also reserve tickets by phone or online, but as visitor numbers are limited you'll almost certainly have to book a day or two in advance. The tours start with a short video extolling the virtues of the building, followed by a close-up look at the decorated facade columns and a brief visit to the two floors of the main concert hall. Or, of course, you can always come to see a performance – the concert season here runs from October until June.