A façade of bones and masks, a roof shaped like a dragon's back and not a single straight line inside. Gaudí's most playful building is a short visit on Barcelona's grandest avenue — best with a timed ticket.
Casa Batlló was an ordinary 1870s apartment building when the textile industrialist Josep Batlló hired Antoni Gaudí to remodel it. Between 1904 and 1906 Gaudí rebuilt the façade and the main floor and redesigned the roof and the light well. Barcelona nicknamed it the House of Bones for its bone-like pillars and skull-like balconies. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of Gaudí's works.
The noble floor, where the Batlló family lived, is a sequence of curved rooms looking over Passeig de Gràcia through huge undulating windows. The light well is lined with tiles that shade from deep blue at the top to pale at the bottom, so light is even on every floor. Above the white attic arches, the roof is a scaled dragon pierced by a turret and cross — a nod to Saint George, Catalonia's patron saint.
Entry is by timed slot. Allow around an hour and a quarter. The house is ten minutes' walk from Casa Milà (La Pedrera) on the same avenue, which makes a natural Gaudí morning; the Sagrada Família and Park Güell need separate timed tickets. In summer, evening rooftop concerts are sometimes offered as a separate experience.
Link Casa Batlló with La Pedrera, the Sagrada Família and Park Güell in our complete Barcelona guide — or let the AI build your day-by-day itinerary.
Barcelona City Guide