The Passeig de Gràcia is a wide Barcelona street that is the main thoroughfare of
Barcelona's Eixample district, and probably the number-one shopping destination in the
city. The romantically-inclined might interpret its name as "passage of grace", or "passage
to grace", a promise that any street would have difficulty fulfilling, but the origin of the
name is actually much more literal and mundane. The original purpose of the road was to
connect old Barcelona, at the time contained within a city wall, with the nearby community of
Gràcia (named after its convent, Nostra Senyora de Gràcia). The road ran through open
space, and wasn't nearly so grand. But during the 19th Century, Barcelona was bursting at its
seams and ended up spilling over its wall into the surrounding countryside. The Passeig de
Gràcia was expanded, and the area around it became a planned district called the Eixample
("extension"). The community of Gràcia was finally enveloped and ingested by Barcelona,
becoming another district thereof.
With all the development going on, the Eixample in general, and the Passeig de Gràcia in
particular, became fertile ground for modernista architects in the late 19th and early
20th Centuries. And Antoni Gaudí (often lumped in with the modernistas, but not really one
stylistically – apparently modernisme had a set of rules, and Gaudí pretty much made up his
own), who contributed La Pedrera near the north end of the road (and the Sagrada
Família, in a different part of the district).
At its south end, the Passeig de Gràcia spills into the Plaça de Catalunya, which (you
may recall) lies at the head of La Rambla, reasonably close to our hotel. On exiting from La
Pedrera, we decided to walk the length of Passeig de Gràcia, which stretches for about a
mile, to look at the buildings. We passed many designer stores but didn't visit any (I find
them to be silly places with absurdly elevated prices; Nella may have a different opinion).
Many of the buildings were practical but nondescript 20th Century structures, but
occasionally we ran into something that grabbed our attention.
Passeig Balconies
A small concentration of such buildings occupies a block known as the Illa de la Discòrdia
("block of discord"), named for the experimentally-architected structures on the block which
clash with each other and with everything else in the area.
Two such buildings are next door to each other. The first, which is impossible to miss, is called
Casa Batlló. It was designed by Antoni Gaudí, again assisted by Josep Maria Jujol. It was
built before La Pedrera, between 1904 and 1906, and seems to have previewed some of the elements
that found their way into the apartment house. It looks like there are some structural
similarities, and Jujol's color ideas are on display on the façade of this building. This makes
for a structure that we found impossible to ignore.
Casa Batlló
Roof, Casa Batlló
Casa Batlló
Façade, Casa Batlló
Casa Batlló
After taking some pictures we moved on, as there was a line of people waiting to get into Casa
Batlló, and it looked like it would be moving exceptionally slowly. To learn more about Casa
Batlló, you can visit their official website.
The Queue, Casa Batlló
Next door to Casa Batlló is a building called Casa Amatller, designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch
and built between 1898 and 1900. It's a beautiful building, but one can see it has a lot more in
common with Art Nouveau than with Gaudí. If this building were located anywhere else, it too would be
difficult to ignore, but one can't help but suspect that the pure craziness of its neighbor could
cause some to overlook it.
Casa Amatller
Casa Amatller
Balconies, Casa Amatller
Windows, Casa Amatller
We continued down Passeig de Gràcia, photographing some of the distinctive buildings.
Casa Lleó Morera (Lluís Domènech i Montaner, 1902-06)
Casa Malagrida (Joaquim Codina Matalí, 1905-08)
Casa Rocamora (Bonaventura and Joaquim Basegoda, 1920)
Casa Rocamora
Eventually we came across a big concrete thing that looked like a bomb shelter, and knew we
had arrived at the El Corte Inglés store on Plaça de Catalunya. We walked through the
square, looking at the fountains and sculptures found there.
El Corte Inglés, Plaça de Catalunya
Fountain and Other El Corte Inglés Building
A brief search brought us to the head of La Rambla, and we returned to our hotel to
rest up for our next adventure, a visit to the castle on the Montjuïc hill.