ES-48206
I just regret not having seen this during my trip to Barcelona...i love this building! Well, we saw Sagrada Familia, and of course, only from the outside...but we didnt even pass by this one =[.
This is the Casa Batlló, built in 1877. The local name of the building is House of Bones (Casa dels ossos) and it does
indeed have a visceral, skeletal, organic quality .
The building looks very remarkable — like everything Gaudí designed, only identifiable as Modernisme or Art Nouveau in the broadest sense. The ground floor, in particular, is rather astonishing with tracery, irregular oval windows and flowing sculpted stone work.
Much of the facade is decorated with a mosaic made of broken ceramic tiles that starts in shades of golden orange moving into greenish blues. The roof is arched and was linked to the back of a dragon or dinosaur.
A common theory about the building is that the rounded feature to the left of centre, terminating at the top in a turret and cross, represents the sword of St. George - patron of Catalonia.
