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In this photographic report in La Vanguardia Readers’ Photos I propose a tour in images of 10 elegant houses with modernist lobbies and staircases in Barcelona.

A good part of the modernist buildings in the Catalan capital are concentrated in Eixample. They are an expression of the taste and wealth of the families who commissioned their construction at the time. In fact, many of these houses are known by the family name of their original developers.

Nowadays, these properties are in many cases occupied by private homes and it is not always easy to access the community halls. In other cases, they are public buildings. And in others, hotels or company headquarters.

Catalan modernism was a political-cultural movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which developed especially in Barcelona with the sponsorship of the bourgeoisie. At an architectural level, Antoni Gaudí is the greatest exponent.

Casa Antoni Costa, also known as Casa Domènech Estapà, is a residential building located at Rambla de Catalunya, 122, in the Eixample of Barcelona, ??listed as a Cultural Property of Local Interest.

Casa Maria Robert is a residential building located on Gran Vía de les Corts Catalanes, number 684, in the Eixample district. Designed by the architect Salvador Viñals, it was built between 1888 and 1890. It is a work protected as a Cultural Property of Local Interest.

The Palau Montaner is a modernist building located on Calle Mallorca, 278, cataloged as a cultural asset of local interest. Like the disappeared neighbor Palau Simon, this building has a side garden, adjusting the façade to the shore and drawing the urban landscape with the same architecture, an atypical design for individual mansions that usually have the garden in front, like the first buildings. from Passeig de Gràcia.

In the heart of the Eixample is this fully modernist building, Casa Antoni Segarra, one of the best constructions by the maestro Josep Masdéu i Puigdemasa, begun in 1904 and completed in 1907.

Palau Macaya is a modernist building at Passeig Sant Joan, 108, declared a national monument by the Ministry of Education and Science on January 9, 1976, along with other works by Puig and Cadafalch. In 1979 it became the first headquarters of the Caixa cultural center, currently CaixaForum Macaya.

On the corner between Enric Granados Street and Diagonal Avenue, stands one of the last modernist buildings in Barcelona. Its beauty lies in the containment of the curved shapes that characterize the façade. Late modernist building, built in 1918, when almost no architects were working in this style. The work was signed by Gabriel Borrell, but is by the architect and writer Manuel Sayrach, son of the project promoter. Sayrach Jr. had not finished his degree when he conceived this interesting building that denotes a clear influence of Gaudí in the use of curved lines.

Casa Pía Batlló is a building located on the corner of Rambla de Catalunya and Gran Vía de las Corts Catalanes, listed as a cultural property of local interest. Although the first project of the house dates from 1891, the definitive one was drawn up in 1892 by the architect Josep Vilaseca i Casanovas, commissioned by Pia Batlló i Batlló and her husband Josep Bach i Escofet. In 1894, the architect himself designed galleries on the Gran Via side.

Located in Passeig de Gràcia, 66, the Casa Vídua Marfà is an important building due to its mix of styles. Modernism is present on the ground floor and inside the staircase, while on the facade there is a clear reference to civil Gothic.

Work by Adolf Ruiz Casamitjana from the years 1901-1903, located at 120 Girona Street. It is a building between party walls that structures the façade in four vertical axes. The female bust that presides over the main door is completely modernist in style.

Building from 1903-1904, designed by Francesc Ferriol Carreras, located at 204 Paris Street. It is of conservative modernism. The ornamentation is based on reliefs with foliage. The door and the crown stand out, with four raised bodies where the digits of the year 1904 are surrounded by a border.