Barcelona Guide
The Eixample
La Pedrera
Address: Pg. de Gràcia 92; entrance on c/Provença
Opening time: Daily: March– Oct 9am–8pm, Nov– Feb 9am–6.30pm, closed first week Jan
Telephone: 902 400 973
Website: www.lapedreraeducacio.org
Price: €8
Antoni Gaudí's weird apartment building, constructed as the Casa Milà between 1905 and 1911, and popularly known as La Pedrera ("The Stone Quarry"), is simply not to be missed – though you can expect queues whenever you visit. Its hulking, rippled facade, curving around the street corner in one smooth sweep, is said to have been inspired by the mountain of Montserrat just outside Barcelona, while the apartments themselves, whose balconies of tangled metal drip over the facade, resemble eroded cave dwellings. Indeed, there's not a straight line to be seen – hence the contemporary joke that the new tenants would only be able to keep snakes as pets.
Described by Gaudí himself as "more luminous than light", the building was his last secular commission – and one of his best – but even here he was injecting religious motifs and sculptures into the building until told to remove them. A sculpture of the Virgin Mary was planned to complete the roof, but the building's owners demurred, having been alarmed by the anti-religious fervour of the "Tragic Week" in Barcelona in 1909, when anarchist-sponsored rioting destroyed churches and religious foundations. Gaudí, by now working full-time on the Sagrada Família, was appalled, and determined in future to use his skills only for religious purposes.
The self-guided visit includes a trip up to the extraordinary terrat (roof terrace) to see at close quarters the enigmatic chimneys, as well as an informative exhibition about Gaudí's work installed under the 270 curved brick arches of the attic. El Pis ("the apartment") on the building's fourth floor re-creates the design and style of a modernista-era bourgeois apartment in a series of extraordinarily light rooms that flow seamlessly from one to another. The apartment is filled with period furniture and effects, while the moulded door and window frames, and even the brass door handles, all follow Gaudí's sinuous building design.