In Barcelona, the rear facade of Gaudí's Casa Batlló regains its former appearance

The façade and courtyard at the rear of Barcelona's Casa Batlló, one of Antoni Gaudí's most iconic works, have been restored to their original appearance, as envisioned by the modernist architect more than a century ago, thanks to a restoration project presented on Thursday, June 19.

The appearance of this building, completed by Gaudí in 1906 for the Catalan industrialist Josep Batlló, particularly its interior façade, had varied over time, with the Civil War (1936-1939), changes of ownership and certain works.

A team of architects, historians, and craftsmen worked for over a year to restore parts of the lost mosaics and the blackened ironwork of the balconies overlooking one of Barcelona's most characteristic interior courtyards.

"What you see is the closest thing (to the building) from 1906, we have done everything we could with today's technology," Xavier Villanueva, the chief architect and head of the restoration work at Casa Batlló, told AFP on Thursday.

The architect explains that he carried out extensive research beforehand to best match the initial project.

As the crews began work, they discovered that the stucco on the rear façade was much darker than they had imagined; the grilles returned to their original cream color. The woodwork turned green again, and the mosaics regained their shine.

The parabolic-shaped pergola that stood in the upstairs patio, which disappeared in the 40s, was reproduced and the flooring was redone with "more than 85.000 tesserae (fragments used in mosaics, editor's note), made by hand one by one, exactly as originally," Xavier Villanueva emphasized.

The work cost 3,5 million euros.

Located on Passeig de Gràcia, the favorite haunt of the bourgeoisie and wealthy industrialists in the early 20th century, Casa Batlló is one of the best-known works of Antoni Gaudí, who was also the architect of the famous Sagrada Família.

The building, which the Batlló family has not owned since the 1950s, has belonged to the Bernat family since the late 90s, descendants of the creator of "Chupa Chups" sweets, who opened it to the public at the beginning of the century.

Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005, Casa Batlló welcomed 1,9 million visitors last year and remains one of the most visited architectural monuments in tourist Barcelona.