Gaudí’s Casa Batlló, on the Block of Discord on the Passeig de Gràcia, was a private residence for the Batlló family. Imagine living in a museum. Of course, it wasn’t a museum then, but everything in it, the walls, the exterior, and even the furniture, was designed with a clear aesthetic by Gaudí himself, to live your life in and around art.
There is a lot of underwater imagery, like this ceiling that recalls a seashell and the tones of blue in the window glass below.
The house feels like an organism, something aquatic maybe, like a hermit crab with its shell, or something larger maybe, like walking through the ribs of a whale.
The Block of Discord, so named for its diverse array of modernism architecture, includes Casa Batlló as well as, to its left, Casa Amatller (architect: Joseph Puig i Cadafalch), and, at the far end of the block, Casa Lleó Morera (architect: Lluís Domènech i Montaner), the worlds of such different imaginations colliding on one city block.
Casa Batlló, Barcelona, September 2010