Gaudi | My favorite architect.
By Karen Lee
6 October 2007
Casa Battlo jumps out of the cityscape of the busy Passeig de Gracia in the L'Eixample district of Barcelona, so different from the surrounding angular buildings, a rose between thorns. The facade is colourful, organic and slightly sinister, with tibia like columns and skull like balconies, indeed the local name for the building is Casa dels Ossos, or House of Bones.
Casa Batllo was designed by Gaudi for Josep Batllo, a wealthy aristocrat, as an upmarket home and completed in 1907. Senor Batllo lived in the lower two floors with his family and the upper floors were rented out as apartments.
The building is said to represent the legend of Saint George, the patron saint of Catalonia, who slew a dragon about to devour a beautiful Catalan princess. The curved tiled roof is said to represent the Dragon's back, and the turret and cross is the sword of Saint George. The bones and skulls of the facade are the dragon's victims.
Inside the building is like being within a living plant or animal. There are no edges or right-angles here. The walls are rounded in undulations and appear as sheets of cells. Every detail is perfect, every last object considered and rendered beautiful.
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