Casa Milà

What it is

Casa Milà is the apartment block Antoni Gaudí built on the chamfered corner of Passeig de Gràcia and Carrer de Provença between 1906 and 1912, and it was the last civil building he completed before he gave the rest of his working life to the Sagrada Família. Rosario Segimon and Pere Milà commissioned it as their own home and as a block of flats to let; the plans went to the City Council on 2 February 1906, and Gaudí certified the work finished on 31 October 1912. Barcelona nicknamed it La Pedrera, the quarry, for the raw undulating stone of the facade, and the name stuck even after the argument about whether the building was a scandal or a masterpiece had been settled in its favour. The Eixample Commission accepted in 1909 that the building was monumental in character and did not have to keep strictly to municipal ordinances, which is how it came to break the block line it stands in. It was listed in Barcelona's heritage catalogue on 30 October 1962, registered as a national monument in 1969, and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 2 November 1984 alongside Park Güell and Palau Güell. Since 2013 it has belonged to the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation, which still lets flats in it: this is a visitor attraction wrapped around a working residential building.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What's inside

The standard route, sold as La Pedrera Essential, covers five spaces across roughly 4,500 square metres on five levels, and they are visited in a fixed order from the bottom up. The two courtyards come first. The Flower Courtyard on the Passeig de Gràcia side was the owners' own entrance, circular, with painted floral murals and a staircase that curves up through the light; the Butterfly Courtyard on Carrer de Provença is elliptical, with mural paintings by Aleix Clapés and iron-and-glass doors. Gaudí built these two large courtyards rather than the narrow ventilation shafts his contemporaries used, which is why the flats behind them are bright. Next is the Apartment, a flat furnished as a Barcelona family would have kept it in 1911, with Gaudí's plaster mouldings, door handles moulded to the hand and the reed-and-plaster suspended ceilings that follow the sinuosity of the building instead of lying flat. Above it, the Attic holds the only permanent exhibition on Gaudí's whole career, shown in models, plans and drawings under 270 self-supporting brick catenary arches. The route ends on the roof terrace among six seven-metre stairwell exits, twenty-nine four-metre chimneys and two five-metre ventilation towers, several of them clad in trencadís mosaic; one small white-tiled arch up there frames the Sagrada Família exactly.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

How long to spend

Ninety minutes. That is the figure La Pedrera itself publishes for the Essential visit, and its own frequently asked questions put it slightly wider at approximately an hour to an hour and a half. Ninety minutes is the honest planning number for a first visit that uses the included videoguide and does not skip the attic exhibition. The route is self-guided and one-way from the courtyards up to the roof, so the pace is set by the visitor rather than by a group leader, and the queue at the lift between the attic and the roof is usually the only place where time is lost involuntarily. The constraint on a late arrival is not the building's closing time but the last entrance for the ticket held: an Essential ticket runs 9:00 to 17:30 with last entrance at 17:15, while the building itself stays open until 20:30 in summer. Anyone who wants to sit on the roof rather than walk across it, or read the attic panels rather than glance at them, should budget two hours. A guided tour of the same five spaces is available on request for groups and does not add rooms, only commentary.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Season and crowds

La Pedrera opens every day of the week, including public holidays, and runs two published seasons. From 6 March to 1 November 2026 it is open 9:00 to 20:30; from 2 November 2026 to 25 February 2027 it closes earlier, at 18:30. A special Christmas timetable runs 26 December 2026 to 3 January 2027 at 9:00 to 20:30, with 1 January 2027 opening late at 11:00. The dates the building is shut are few and worth writing down: 6 July, 7 September and 25 December 2026, and the whole week from 11 to 17 January 2027. Night visit sessions run outside those hours, 20:40 to 22:20 in summer and 19:00 to 23:00 in winter, on a separate ticket. Within a day, the first hour after opening and the last two hours before closing are the quiet ones by the ordinary logic of a city attraction, but La Pedrera publishes no visitor-volume figures by month or by hour, so treat that as judgement rather than as a recorded fact. Weather matters more here than at most Barcelona monuments, because the roof terrace closes whenever it rains, and the roof is the reason most people come.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Tickets

The Essential ticket, which is the general admission covering the courtyards, apartment, attic and rooftop with a videoguide in eleven languages, starts at 29 euros for an adult. It is priced per person, and the reductions are set out on the same page: 12.50 euros for a junior aged 12 to 17, free for a child under 12, 19 euros for a visitor over 65, 19 euros for a student with a valid card or current enrolment, and 19 euros for a visitor with an accredited disability of 33 per cent or more. A visitor with a disability of 65 per cent or more enters free, and a companion pays 12.50 euros. Residents of Catalonia have their own reduced rate. All of these require the corresponding documentation at the door. Other options exist at other prices: Sunset from 25 euros for the 17:30 to 20:30 slot, the guided Night Experience from 39.50 euros, the before-opening Sunrise tour from 39.50 euros, an open-date ticket from 45 euros, and combined tickets with Sant Pau or the Palau de la Música at 42 euros. Buy online. La Pedrera states there is a surcharge on top of some online fares at the box office, and that tickets once bought cannot be cancelled or refunded.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Getting there

The address is Passeig de Gràcia 92, in the Eixample, 08008 Barcelona, on the corner with Carrer de Provença. No car is needed and none is wanted: the building sits on the city's best-served transport corner and the surrounding streets are slow, metered and largely one-way. The metro stop is Diagonal, on lines 3 and 5, one short block north. The FGC station is called Provença - La Pedrera and comes out almost at the door. Renfe's Passeig de Gràcia station is a few minutes' walk south along the same avenue, which is the useful one for anyone arriving from the airport by train. Bus lines V15, V17, H10, H8, 7, 22, 24, 6, 33 and 34 all stop nearby. For anyone who does drive, La Pedrera names the Passeig de Gràcia-La Pedrera parking garage next to the building. Tourist coaches cannot simply pull up: Barcelona has designated coach pick-up and drop-off zones near the major attractions and their use has to be booked in advance through zonabus.cat. Casa Batlló is a ten-minute walk down the same avenue, which makes the two easy to pair in one morning.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What to watch out for

Rain closes the roof terrace, and no ticket protects against it. If the ticket has not been validated the visit can be rescheduled; if it has been validated, La Pedrera accepts no change, so a wet forecast is a reason to move the booking before setting out rather than after arriving. Otherwise a date or time change is only possible if flexibility insurance was added at 1.90 euros during purchase, and there are no refunds. Accessibility is partial and the operator says so plainly: the public parts of the building take a wheelchair without obstacles except the rooftop and the mezzanine, where Gaudí's constant changes of level defeat wheels and pushchairs, though a platform at the lift exit gives an overview. Wheelchairs are lent free, subject to availability, and must be booked in advance by email. On conduct, backpacks are checked at security and must then be carried on the front or left in the free ground-floor lockers; there is no eating, drinking or smoking inside; pets other than guide dogs are refused; and anyone under eighteen must be accompanied throughout. The route may be shortened at short notice for restoration, weather or events.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Photography

Read the rules before packing a camera bag, because they are stricter than most Barcelona monuments. Flash photography is not permitted anywhere inside. Professional photographic equipment is not allowed into the building at all, and taking photographs, video or film of La Pedrera, including any use of a tripod, requires special authorisation requested in advance through the operator's contact form. La Pedrera also reserves the right to act against material published without that authorisation, and refuses entry to anyone arriving dressed for a shoot. A phone or a small camera held in the hand is what the ordinary visit is built around. Given that, the roof terrace is the picture, and it rewards a low camera position: the chimneys and the seven-metre stairwell exits read as figures against the sky, and the small white trencadís arch beside one staircase frames the Sagrada Família precisely, which is not an accident of the view but a height Gaudí calculated. Late afternoon light rakes across the stone and separates the forms; flat midday sun does not. Inside, the two courtyards are best shot upward from the floor, and the facade needs the far pavement of Passeig de Gràcia to fit in one frame.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Where it is

Nearby

External links

• View on Wikidata