Management Plan of Gaudi’s casa Batlló, a before and after

Abstract

Casa Batlló, World Heritage, is one of the most emblematic buildings of Barcelona, not only for its exceptional location on one of the main tourist and business areas, but also because it was designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí.

The building was previous, but in 1905 the family Batlló became the new owners of the House, and so, they hired Gaudí for rehabilitating the building to host several tenements. Its strategic position favoured that the Building, over time, adopted new uses that required internal reforms. In addition, during the last decades of 20th century, tourist interest about Casa Batlló grew immensely, and that led to far-reaching changes in the House to adapt for public use.

At present, cultural heritage acts as a cultural catalyst, source of income and occupation, and Casa Batlló is not an exception. In most tourist visits the aim is an easy and logical read of the monument, but socio-cultural demand must not condition historic building, therefore we have to look for a balance between the cultural tourist expectations and the monument values, ensuring this way the protection and conservation for future generations.
The House requires several new interventions that will ensure the safe of users in case of fire, and universal accessibility and so competent authorities raised the need of drafting a Management Plan for the restoration of the House, that could align the intervention criteria for future projects and works, and also that defined restoration priorities.

The drafting of the Management Plan involved a rigorous search for the in-depth knowledge of the House, that revealed unknown data, but what it was still more important, it enabled establishing a range of values for concretizing restoration criteria.

One of the largest discoveries has been determining the existence of the only tenement that remains as the original project designed by Gaudí.