Palau de la Música Catalana
Domènech i Montaner's modernista concert hall, a UNESCO World Heritage site still in daily use.
The Palau de la Música Catalana was built between 1905 and 1908 for the Orfeó Català, the choral society founded in 1891 to promote Catalan song. Lluís Domènech i Montaner designed it on a cramped corner site in the Sant Pere district, using an exposed steel frame so that the walls could be dissolved into glass. The result is a concert hall lit almost entirely by daylight, with an inverted stained-glass skylight of gold and blue hanging over the stalls.
Mosaic, ceramic, wrought iron and carved stone cover almost every surface, including the sculptural group on the corner by Miquel Blay and the busts of Palestrina, Bach, Beethoven and Wagner around the stage. UNESCO inscribed the building as a World Heritage Site in 1997, alongside Domènech i Montaner's Hospital de Sant Pau. A restoration and extension by Òscar Tusquets added the smaller Petit Palau and a new foyer. The hall hosts choral, orchestral, chamber and other concerts, and opens for daily tours.
Highlights
- Inverted stained-glass skylight by Antoni Rigalt over the auditorium
- Stage flanked by Miquel Blay's sculpture and mosaic muses in relief
- UNESCO World Heritage listing shared with the Hospital de Sant Pau
- Home of the Orfeó Català choir and the Palau 100 concert series
