Palau Güell Antoni Gaudí castle themed Palace

About Palau Güell Medieval Style Antoni Gaudí House

Palau Güell, Barcelona is located on the corner of La Rambla with Nou de la Rambla and was an urban residence built from 1886 to 1890 for the family of Eusebi Güell (industrialist, politician and patron of the arts). it is the second the second noble house by Antoni Gaudí, the first being Casa Viçens in Gracia.

The first thing you notice is the Palau Güell façade which takes a lot of inspiration from a medieval castle wall with overhangs and portcullis style ornate grate gates set into the parabolic arches. The gates swing open and are not drawn upwards. The ornate ironwork of the gate and the interpretation of the Güell coat of arms between the gates has a dragon perched on top. This is Sant Jordi´s dragon from the saint George legend. Sant Jordi is the patron saint of Catalonia and dragons feature heavily in Gaudí´s work.

The gates are for carriage access into an interior space where guests could alight directly onto the staircase up to the first floor and the carriages could be brought round and the horses stabled in the basement.

As well as a visual masterpiece, Gaudí solved an engineering challenge of how to build a large palatial noble home on a footprint of only 18 metres deep and 22 metres wide. he did this by building vertically and each floor has a purpose that follows the layout of a medieval castle keep. The basement and ground floor are purely for horses and stables with the stairs leading up to the noble floor. The ground floor has a spiral ramp down to the basement which was specifically to lead the horses into the subterranean stable. The basement was also the servants quarters.

The first floor (noble floor) features a grand reception hallway with huge windows out onto the street making this space very luminous. Off this reception hall is a smoking room. The reception hall leads into the main lounge area with pipe organ, a space for entertaining guests and side rooms containing grand piano and a dining room.

The second floor is for the accommodation of the Nobel family with bedrooms and private bathrooms. An interesting feature of the bedrooms is that the lounge is actually two floors high with the bedrooms on the floor above being arranged around the lounge. There are peep holes that open from the bedrooms to look down at how the guests were dressed so the family could greet their guests appropriately dressed after adjusting their attire accordingly.

The roof terrace features twenty Gaudí colourful chimneys decorated with coloured tile shards (trencadís) and has a spire with windows in the middle that illuminates the lounge via skylights. Also there are some servants quarters in the attic. Note the Sant Jordi dragon weather vane at the top of the spire.

Thought the Palau Güell visit you will see many period pieces of furniture. Gaudí was not only the architect for the building but also designed the fixtures and fittings plus a large amount of furniture.

Palau Güell was the first commission for Antonio Gaudí from Eusebi Güell and this house was built to link the existing Güell home in Las Ramblas with the new palace in Nou de la Rambla via a secret passage. This passage today is blocked but you can see what remains when you visit.

Palau Güell along with Gaudí's first grand house, Casa Viçens share similar influences of Oriental and Arabian themed rooms as well as the usual Gaudí nature inspired decorations. Both these houses have a boxy construction unlike his later two houses in Passeig de Grácia that have nature inspired wavy flowing lines.

Palau Güell was granted UNESCO World Heritage status in 1984.

In 2004 Palau Güell closed to the public for extensive renovation works including replacing some of the original stone because of cracks that were causing structural problems within the building. Restoration work was completed in April 2011.

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