Güell Pavilions

A wrought-iron dragon is the first thing your eye catches at the entrance to the Güell Pavilions—a grille of metal designed to guard the estate’s gardens, with glass “eyes” set into the dragon’s head. It’s an intensely specific image from Antoni Gaudí, and it also points to a larger, unusual story: these buildings mark the beginning of the long patronage between Gaudí and Eusebi Güell, and they translate mythology into architecture with a level of precision you don’t usually see at building entrances.

An estate with a mythology

The so-called Pavellons Güell—“Güell Pavilions”—sit within the Güell estate in Pedralbes. Gaudí designed the complex as a commission from Eusebi Güell, one of the great patrons behind his career. The buildings were constructed between 1884 and 1887, and they were part of Güell’s land in the Les Corts area, then associated with Sarrià and its outlying districts. Before Gaudí began, a Caribbean-style mansion had stood nearby: Torre Satalia, built by Gaudí’s teacher Joan Martorell i Montells and christened by Jacinto Verdaguer. Gaudí was asked to remodel that house and also to create a perimeter wall with gates—designing, among other elements, an Orientalist wall that recalls Mudejar influence.