Palau Guell

Gaudi was only 34 years old when industrialist Eusebi Guell commissioned him to build a family palace just off La Rambla in 1885. Construction started in October 1886 and was finished in time for the 1888 Universal Exposition — a tight schedule that Gaudi met by working at a pace he would never repeat. While the Sagrada Familia crawled along for decades, the Palau Guell was built in just two years.

From the street, the building is deliberately restrained — almost severe — with its dark stone facade and two parabolic arch entrances wide enough for horse-drawn carriages. But step inside and the restraint explodes. The interior pivots around a central hall three stories high, capped by a parabolic dome pierced with small holes that let in pinpoints of light, creating the effect of a starry sky. Gaudi used over twenty different types of materials — marble, wrought iron, hardwoods, ceramics — and designed every detail down to the furniture.

The rooftop is where Gaudi first experimented with the mosaic-clad chimneys that would become his signature. Twenty chimneys and ventilation towers erupt from the roof in fantastical shapes, covered in trencadis — broken tile mosaics — that prefigure the explosion of color he would later unleash at Park Guell and Casa Batllo. This roof was the laboratory for everything that followed.

Guell only lived in the palace for about twenty years before moving to Park Guell in 1910, shortly after the violent Setmana Tragica (Tragic Week) shook Barcelona. In 1945, his youngest daughter Merce donated the building to the Barcelona Provincial Council. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984.