Casa Batlló inside: is it worth paying to visit Gaudí’s famous ‘house of bones?’
Barcelona is characterised by its weird and wonderful buildings, built in the Catalan Modernista style. Crazy shapes, flowing lines and bright colours can be seen across the whole city, making it a unique place to visit. Although there were several architects who helped to shape the city’s image around the early 20th century, none did so much as Antoni Gaudí, the eccentric Catalonian whose most important building is the Sagrada Família. (The construction of which goes on and on to the present day. It’s kind of a big deal. Literally; you can’t miss it.)
Visitors to Barcelona flock to see Gaudí’s most important buildings, sometimes queuing for hours to see inside. And Casa Batlló comes close to the top of every list of best Gaudí buildings to visit in Barcelona. Some of them are well worth the entrance fee and long wait.
Some of them, pals, are not.
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The story of Casa Battló
Number 43 on the Paseo de Gracia was originally built in 1877, and was to all intents and purposes, a pretty normal house. The Paseo de Gracia was (and still is) one of the most important streets in Barcelona, in a wealthy neighbourhood, but other than that there wasn’t anything particularly special about this family home.
Until Gaudí was commissioned by Mr Josep Batlló to transform his family home into something special. Between 1904 and 1906 the house was completely restored into something so spectacular that at first it received a lot of criticism. Skull-like balconies grow out from around the windows, the entire building is covered in broken ceramic tiles, and the roof resembles a dragon’s back covered in shimmering scales curving up and down smoothly. A turret capped with a cross represents the sword that St George used to slay the dragon. The house is also known as ‘Casa dels Ossos’ or ‘House of Bones,’ because the curving bulbous lines of the outside of the building seem to resemble a skeleton.
And that’s just the façade.
Casa Batlló inside follows the same rules of flowing lines, organic forms and surreal shapes. There’s no denying it’s an architectural wonder, and a building which (I think), is pretty darn tooting beautiful, simply for its uniqueness.
I am a true fan of Casa Batlló inside and out.
Does anyone live in Casa Batlló?
Since the 1950s Casa Batlló has changed hands many many times, and although it’s currently owned by the Bernat family, nobody lives within the house’s whimsical walls. Casa Batlló is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has been open to the public since the mid nineties.
How much does it cost to visit Casa Batlló?
How much does it cost to visit Casa Batlló? In my opinion, way too much.
An adult ticket is €35 if you pre-book online, and €39 if you book in person at the ticket office. If you want to be in one of the first batches of visitors to enter the house (fewer visitors means fewer crowds to wade through), you can book a ticket online for €45, and enter the house at either 8.30am or 8.45am.
Ticket entry includes an audio tour, and you also get given a ‘virtual reality tablet’ which you can hold up to pretend there’s furniture in the rooms.
Is it worth paying for Casa Batlló?
Whilst I am glad that I saw Casa Batlló inside as well as out, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that it just is not worth the entrance fee. The house is incredibly beautiful but unless you’re a real architecture fanatic, you’re unlikely to see anything inside which justifies the extortionate ticket price.
The house isn’t particularly big, so it doesn’t take too long to get around, and all the rooms are empty. (There are now some art installations inside, which weren’t there when I visited, but I still think this is unlikely to make the ticket for Casa Batlló worth it.) I was lucky to be visiting Barcelona in winter when the queues were almost non-existent, but if I’d have had to wait for a long time to see the house on a crowded day, I would have been really frustrated.
If the ticket entrance to Casa Batlló was significantly cheaper, I’d recommend visiting, but for now your money is much better spent elsewhere. The Sagrada Família is well worth a visit, as well as the Palau de la Música Catalana, a beautiful concert hall built by another of Barcelona’s prominent modernist architects.
When it comes to the Casa Batlló, beautiful though it may well be, save your pennies and admire it from the outside.
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