The mask-shaped balconies and organic windows of Antoni Gaudi's Casa Batllo
2011
08/28
NIKON D90, 35.0 mm f/1.4 @
f/8.0 1/20,
ISO 200
8
views
A detail of the Casa Batllo facade shows the famous balconies resembling carnival masks or skulls, an element that contributed to the nickname Casa dels ossos (House of Bones). The windows of the noble floor feature organic shapes with columns resembling bones and colored glass creating iridescent reflections. The facade is entirely covered with trencadis, the mosaic technique using colored ceramic fragments typical of Catalan modernism. Colors fade from blue to green, evoking dragon scales or sea waves. Gaudi transformed an anonymous 19th-century building into this extraordinary habitable work of art between 1904 and 1906.
