The Block of Discord: Barcelona's Passeig de Gràcia and the Modernista Rivalry

From Plaça de Catalunya to the House of Spikes: Cerdà's grid, Gaudí's Casa Batlló and La Pedrera, Domènech and Puig i Cadafalch, and the Barcelona avenue where architects fought in stone

Barcelona · 11 stops · 25 min audio · Generated October 2026

1. 1. Plaça de Catalunya: Where the Old City Ends

   Plaça de Catalunya, 08002 Barcelona, Spain

   Listen · 2:16

   You are standing in the great open hinge of Barcelona, Plaça de Catalunya, with its fountains, its pigeons and its tide of people pouring out of the metro. Behind you, to the south, the narrow lanes of the old city begin. Ahead, wide straight avenues march away towards the hills.

   For most of its history, none of this was a square at all. Until the middle of the nineteenth century Barcelona was squeezed inside its medieval walls, one of the most crowded cities in Europe, and the ground under your feet was open land outside the gates, where the army forbade anyone to build. When the walls finally came down, from 1854, this field became the joint between two cities: the old one, and a new one that did not exist yet.

   For decades it stayed an awkward no-man's-land of stalls, shacks and quarrels about who owned what and what should go here. The square you see was only properly laid out in the 1920s, in time for the International Exposition of 1929. That is why it feels less like a grand planned piazza and more like a crossroads that grew into its own importance.

   Look for the strange monument on the side facing Rambla de Catalunya: a stone staircase turned upside down, climbing towards nothing. It is Josep Maria Subirachs's tribute to Francesc Macià, the president of the Catalan government in the early 1930s, unveiled in 1991. People read it in different ways... a stair that has to be built step by step, or a reminder that history does not always lead where you expect.

   This walk is about what happened when the city finally burst out of its walls: textile fortunes, a brilliant engineer's grid, and a handful of architects who turned one avenue into an open-air competition. But before the big names, a quieter Gaudí. Leave the square on its north-eastern side, follow Carrer de Casp for a few blocks, and stop opposite number 48.

2. 2. Casa Calvet: Gaudí on Good Behaviour

   Carrer de Casp 48, 08010 Barcelona, Spain

   Stop on the pavement across from number 48 and take in a façade that seems, at first glance, almost polite: dressed stone, iron balconies, a symmetrical front that would not frighten a bank manager. This is Casa Calvet, and it was designed by Antoni Gaudí.

   It went up between 1898 and 1900 for the heirs of Pere Màrtir Calvet, a textile manufacturer, with the family firm on the ground floor and flats above. Squeezed into a tight line of neighbours, Gaudí played by the rules. Almost. Look up to the top of the façade, where two curving gables rise against the sky, crowned by busts of saints: Saint Peter Martyr, the owner's namesake, and two saints called Genís, the patrons of Vilassar, the family's home town on the coast.

   The fun is in the details. On the bay window above the door, carved in stone, there are mushrooms... a nod, it is said, to a member of the family who was passionate about mycology. The door knocker shows a cross striking down on a bedbug: good crushing evil, or simply a householder's opinion of insects. Even the iron pulley jutting out at the very top, meant for hauling furniture up to the flats, is drawn with care.

   Then comes the paradox. In 1900 the City Council held the first of its annual competitions for the best new building in Barcelona, and the prize went to this house. Gaudí, the man who would later put a dragon on a roof and build an apartment block that looks like a sea cliff, won the city's official award for his most conventional work. It is often said to be the only official prize he received in his lifetime.

   Casa Calvet is also a snapshot of a man about to change. Within a few years he would abandon straight lines almost completely, and you are about to see what happened when he did. Walk west towards Passeig de Gràcia and stop at its great crossing with the Gran Via, where the geometry of this whole district reveals itself.

3. 3. Cerdà's Cut Corners: The Grid Nobody Wanted

   Passeig de Gràcia & Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 08007 Barcelona, Spain

   Stand at the corner where Passeig de Gràcia meets the Gran Via and look at the shape of the crossing itself. The buildings do not meet in sharp right angles. Every corner has been sliced off, so the junction opens into a wide octagon of light and air.

   That cut corner is the signature of Ildefons Cerdà, an engineer born in Centelles, north of the city, whose plan for the new Barcelona was approved in 1859. He drew an immense grid of identical blocks, each about one hundred and thirteen metres a side, with streets twenty metres wide and every corner chamfered. Locals call those corners xamfrans. They gave drivers a clear view, room to turn, and, Cerdà imagined, space for the steam trams of the future.

   Barcelona did not exactly thank him. The City Council had run its own competition and chosen the plan of a local architect, Antoni Rovira i Trias, a grand design radiating out from the old city. Then the government in Madrid imposed Cerdà's grid instead. Much of the local elite found it monotonous, egalitarian, a chessboard dictated from outside, and Cerdà died in 1876 with little of the credit he deserved.

   His real dream is still hidden inside the blocks. Cerdà wanted buildings on only two sides of each block, with gardens in the middle, so that every family would get sun and fresh air. He studied death rates in the overcrowded old town obsessively, and he is credited with coining the Spanish word urbanización for the new science he was inventing. Speculators had other plans: within decades most blocks were built up on all four sides, and the gardens disappeared under workshops and courtyards. Only in recent decades has the city begun to win some of those inner gardens back.

   Still, it was his grid that gave the Modernista architects their stage: a wide boulevard, regular plots, and rich clients desperate to outshine one another. Walk up the left-hand side of Passeig de Gràcia for two blocks. At the corner of Carrer del Consell de Cent, the competition begins.

4. 4. The Block of Discord: Lleó Morera, Amatller and Batlló

   Passeig de Gràcia 35, 08007 Barcelona, Spain

   Stop on the corner of Carrer del Consell de Cent and look up the block on your side of the avenue. In barely a hundred metres stand three houses by three rival architects, shouting at each other in stone, glass and ceramic. Barcelonans call this stretch the Mansana de la Discòrdia, the Block of Discord.

   It is a pun. In Spanish manzana means both a city block and an apple, so the name winks at the golden apple of discord in Greek myth, the one that set three goddesses fighting over who was the most beautiful. Here the goddesses are houses.

   The corner house is Casa Lleó Morera, remodelled between 1902 and 1906 by Lluís Domènech i Montaner. Its name is a family pun too: lleó means lion and morera means mulberry tree, and both creep through the decoration. On the façade, women carved by Eusebi Arnau hold the marvels of the age: a telephone, a phonograph, a camera, an electric light bulb. Sadly, the ground floor was gutted in the 1940s for a shop front, and the sculptures down there were destroyed.

   Two doors up, past two quieter neighbours, rises Casa Amatller, rebuilt from 1898 by Josep Puig i Cadafalch for the chocolate maker Antoni Amatller. Puig looked north: the stepped gable glittering with tiles recalls a Flemish town house more than anything Mediterranean. Around the doorway, Saint George kills his dragon, and a menagerie of little animals busies itself with human hobbies, a gentle joke about an owner who loved photography.

   And right next door, Gaudí's Casa Batlló, remodelled from 1904 to 1906 for the textile magnate Josep Batlló. Balconies like masks, columns like bones, a wall glittering with glass and ceramic discs, and a roof that arches like a dragon's scaly back, pierced by a tower topped with a cross like a lance. Many read it as the legend of Sant Jordi, patron of Catalonia. So who won? The city's prize for 1906 went to Lleó Morera... but look where the queues are today. Now walk up past Batlló to Carrer d'Aragó, turn left, and look for a brick building crowned by a cloud of metal.

5. 5. Fundació Antoni Tàpies: A Cloud on a Printing House

   Carrer d'Aragó 255, 08007 Barcelona, Spain

   Raise your eyes to the roof of this red brick building and you will see what looks like a gigantic tangle of wire, as if a storm had dropped a bird's nest the size of a bus. It is a sculpture by Antoni Tàpies called Cloud and Chair, and if you search inside the knot you can make out the shape of a chair floating in the cloud.

   The building beneath it is older than every house you have just seen. It was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the architect of Casa Lleó Morera, for the publishing house Montaner i Simon, founded by Ramon de Montaner and Francesc Simon, and it was built in the early 1880s. That makes it one of the very first buildings of Catalan Modernisme. Notice the materials: exposed brick and visible iron, the language of factories, worn proudly on a bourgeois street.

   It was a working machine. Montaner i Simon printed lavish illustrated books and great encyclopaedias, and presses, paper and ink filled these halls. A few years earlier, in 1878, the young Domènech had published an essay called In Search of a National Architecture, asking what a modern Catalan building should look like. This was one of his first answers: rational, modern, and unashamed of its materials.

   A century later the building found a second life. Antoni Tàpies, born in Barcelona in 1923 and one of the great painters of post-war Europe, set up a foundation here, which opened to the public in 1990. Tàpies loved humble materials: sand, straw, rags, cardboard, the scratches and stains of old walls. Putting him in a brick house built for printing presses was a perfect match, and the wire cloud on the roof was his way of signing the façade.

   Most people hurry past without looking up, eyes fixed on the famous neighbours round the corner. You have done better. Now go back to Passeig de Gràcia, cross to the far side, and carry on up the avenue. Keep looking down at your feet as you go.

6. 6. Gaudí's Tiles and Falqués's Benches

   Passeig de Gràcia 66, 08008 Barcelona, Spain

   Look down. The grey hexagonal paving stones under your feet are not ordinary. Each one carries a design in relief: a starfish, a spiral shell like an ammonite, a curl of seaweed. Fit three of them together and the patterns flow into each other like a patch of seabed.

   This is Gaudí's tile, the panot de Gaudí. He designed it in the early years of the twentieth century for Casa Batlló, but by the time it was ready that house was already finished, so he used it in Casa Milà, a few blocks up the avenue, indoors. For decades it lived out of sight. Then in 1997 the city paved the whole of Passeig de Gràcia with a grey version of it, and Gaudí's little piece of the sea came out onto the street.

   Now sit down, if you like, on one of the curving benches along the avenue. They are wrapped in trencadís, broken ceramic set in mortar, and each one sprouts a tall wrought-iron lamp post. They look so much like Gaudí that most people assume they are his. They are not. They were designed in 1906 by Pere Falqués, an architect who worked for the City Council, a Modernista in his own right whose name almost nobody remembers.

   There is one more pavement worth knowing. Away from this avenue, many of Barcelona's sidewalks use another tile, a square grey panot with a four-petal flower. It is so common that it has become an unofficial emblem of the city, printed on souvenirs, notebooks and bags. In Barcelona, even the ground has a design history.

   So the avenue you are walking was planned by an engineer, paved by Gaudí and furnished by Falqués, while the bankers and industrialists who lived along it argued about whose façade was finest. Now leave the avenue for a few minutes. Walk two blocks east to Carrer de Mallorca, where a palace of brick and mosaic hides on a side street.

7. 7. Palau Montaner: A Palace with Two Architects

   Carrer de Mallorca 278, 08037 Barcelona, Spain

   Stop by the railings and take in this palace standing in its own small garden: brick and stone, a crown of colourful mosaic high under the roof, carved details around every window. On a street of apartment blocks, it is a rare thing in the Eixample, a single family's mansion.

   It was built between 1889 and 1893 for Ramon de Montaner, the publisher whose firm, Montaner i Simon, you just saw on Carrer d'Aragó. The commission first went to Josep Domènech i Estapà, a talented architect with a taste for order and classical calm, who later designed the Fabra Observatory on the hill of Tibidabo. He built the lower part of the house... and then, the story goes, walked away after a disagreement with the owner.

   The job passed to the other Domènech, Lluís Domènech i Montaner, and the house changed personality halfway up. Despite the shared surname the two architects were not related, and their styles could hardly be more different. Domènech i Montaner brought in his team of craftsmen: the sculptor Eusebi Arnau, mosaic makers and glass artists, and the upper floors bloom with ornament in a way the lower ones never planned.

   That was the Modernista method. An architect was the conductor of an orchestra of artisans, ironworkers, ceramicists, carpenters and stonecutters, and a house like this was a showcase of Catalan craft as much as a home. Today the palace has an unexpected tenant: it houses the Delegation of the Spanish Government in Catalonia, so the publisher's ballroom now hosts official meetings, flags and press conferences.

   It is not on most visitors' maps, which is exactly why it is worth the detour. Now head back towards Passeig de Gràcia by way of Carrer de Provença. On the corner, a building that looks like a sea cliff is waiting.

8. 8. Casa Milà: La Pedrera, the Stone Quarry

   Passeig de Gràcia 92, 08008 Barcelona, Spain

   Stand back on the corner of Carrer de Provença and let the building roll over you. There is hardly a straight line on this façade: the pale stone billows in waves, the balconies hang like knots of seaweed in twisted iron, and the whole corner looks shaped by wind and water rather than built.

   When it went up, between 1906 and 1912, Barcelona was not impressed. People mocked it as La Pedrera, the stone quarry, and the satirical papers had a field day with caricatures. The insult stuck so well that today it is the name everyone uses, the official one included.

   The house was commissioned by Pere Milà and his wife Roser Segimon, a wealthy widow whose first husband had made a fortune in the Americas. Behind the waves hides a radical idea: the façade holds nothing up. The building rests on pillars and beams, so the walls inside could be placed anywhere, and Gaudí designed ramps so that carriages, and later cars, could drive down into the basement. On the roof, chimneys and ventilation towers stand like helmeted warriors, and people love to say they inspired the stormtroopers of Star Wars... a claim nobody has ever proved.

   The top was meant to be crowned by a great statue of the Virgin. Then, in July 1909, came the Tragic Week, when riots swept the city and dozens of churches and convents were set on fire. Milà, nervous, refused the religious statue. Gaudí withdrew from the project before it was finished, and he later fell out with the owners over his fees, a dispute that ended up in court. When he won, the story goes, he gave the money away.

   La Pedrera was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, and it is the last great house Gaudí built before devoting himself to the Sagrada Família. Now carry on up the avenue almost to the Diagonal, and look across to the left-hand side, where a pale palace sits calmly behind its railings.

9. 9. Palau Robert: The Rich Man Who Said No to Modernisme

   Passeig de Gràcia 107, 08008 Barcelona, Spain

   Here, near the top of Passeig de Gràcia, a cream-coloured palace sits behind railings and greenery, with columns, balustrades and the calm symmetry of a Paris mansion. After the waves of La Pedrera, it looks almost like a polite rebuke. This is Palau Robert.

   It was built between 1898 and 1903 for Robert Robert i Surís, a financier and aristocrat who held the title of Marquis of Robert. Yes, his name really was Robert Robert. While others on this avenue were hiring Gaudí and Domènech, he turned to a French architect, Henri Grandpierre, and asked for something classical, elegant and very much in the taste of Paris.

   That choice tells you something important. Modernisme was never the only fashion in Barcelona, and it was never uncontroversial. For part of the establishment, all those curves and ceramic flowers were vulgar, even a little mad. Within a few years a new movement, Noucentisme, would call Modernisme old-fashioned and demand order, clarity and Mediterranean classicism. In a way, Palau Robert was simply ahead of the backlash.

   Now the hidden gift. Behind the palace lies a garden with tall palms and shady paths, open to the public, one of the very few green refuges on this avenue of shop windows. Most people stream past without suspecting it is there. Today the palace belongs to the Catalan government and hosts an information centre and exhibitions, so you can often wander in, sit under the trees and let the traffic noise fade away.

   From the gate you can see the Avinguda Diagonal, the great avenue Cerdà drew at an angle right across his grid, cutting blocks into odd triangles and wedges. Those awkward plots produced some of the most inventive houses in the city. Follow the Diagonal eastwards for a couple of minutes, keeping your eyes on the buildings across the road.

10. 10. Casa Comalat: One House, Two Faces

    Avinguda Diagonal 442, 08037 Barcelona, Spain

    Across the Diagonal, find a narrow stone façade that seems to ripple, with balconies whose iron railings curl like plants and a crown at the top that rises like a wave about to break. This is Casa Comalat, and if you like the front, wait until you hear about the back.

    It was built between 1909 and 1911 by Salvador Valeri i Pupurull, an architect far less famous than the three giants of the Block of Discord. Valeri admired Gaudí, and you can feel it in the soft, almost melting stone. But he was no mere copyist. He played a game the big names rarely played: he gave one house two completely different personalities.

    The front on the Diagonal is formal and sculptural, dressed for the grand avenue where carriages once paraded. Behind, on Carrer de Còrsega, the building lets its hair down: bulging wooden galleries painted in bright colours, curved like the stern of an old ship, and shining green ceramic. One house, two faces... a respectable public mask and a cheerful private self.

    Part of the reason is Cerdà's grid itself. Because the Diagonal slices through the blocks at an angle, some plots along it run right through to the next street, so a single building ends up with two fronts on two different streets. Valeri turned an awkward plot into a quiet joke about appearances. If you have a minute, slip round the block to Carrer de Còrsega and see for yourself.

    Houses like this one are a reminder that Modernisme was not a club of three geniuses. It was a whole generation of architects, ironworkers, ceramicists, carpenters and stonemasons, and many of their best works carry names that no guidebook ever mentions. Now carry on along the Diagonal in the same direction. A little further on, a castle with six pointed towers is waiting.

11. 11. Casa de les Punxes: The House of Spikes

    Avinguda Diagonal 420, 08037 Barcelona, Spain

    Before you stands a castle that seems to have strayed out of a northern fairy tale: red brick, pale stone, steep gables and six towers capped with sharp conical spires. Barcelonans have always called it Casa de les Punxes, the House of Spikes, although its proper name is Casa Terrades.

    It was designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, the architect of Casa Amatller, and built between 1903 and 1905 for three sisters of the Terrades family. Each sister owned her own plot, and Puig had a clever idea: build three separate houses but wrap them in one continuous fortress, so that from the street it reads as a single building. It fills an entire triangular block, one of those odd shapes created where the Diagonal cuts through the grid.

    Look for the ceramic panels high on the façades. One shows Saint George, and beneath him runs a line in Catalan that means Holy patron of Catalonia, give us back our freedom. In the early twentieth century that was a political statement, and Puig i Cadafalch was a political man. He later presided over the Mancomunitat, which from 1914 brought Catalonia's four provinces together under one shared institution.

    Step back and take in the whole walk. You began in a square that was once forbidden ground outside the walls, crossed a grid that Barcelona never asked for, watched three architects fight over one block, and saw a painter's wire cloud, a quarry of waves, a Parisian palace and a house with two faces. Almost all of it was built in about thirty years, on fortunes made from cotton mills, chocolate, banking and trade with the Americas.

    And none of it was ever safe. For decades in the twentieth century Modernisme was dismissed as old-fashioned kitsch, and some of these buildings were mutilated or came close to demolition. Today they are the very face of the city. Diagonal metro station is a few minutes back along the avenue... and if you still have energy, Gràcia, the old village at the top of Passeig de Gràcia, is waiting just across the road.