The Palau Baró de Quadras will be opening to the public as from Wednesday, 24 February. The Modernista building, designed by the architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch between 1904 and 1906 and located on Av Diagonal, nearby the junction between C/ Rosselló and C/ Pau Claris, will be open to public visits on Wednesday mornings, thanks to the company Cases Singulars.

The Palau Baró de Quadras, the headquarters of the Ramon Llull Institute (IRL) since 2013, will be opening to visits from the public from the first time. Regarded as one of the gems of Modernisme in Barcelona and located halfway between the Pedrera and Casa de les Punxes, the building was declared an Artistic Historical Monument of National Interest in 1976. And yet it remained closed to the public until this year (2016), when it finally joined Barcelona’s network of Modernista buildings open to visits.

The industrialist Manuel de Quadras i Feliu, the Baron of Quadras, commissioned Puig i Cadafalch with a project to redevelop an old rented house. The architect based his designs on the contrast between the building’s two facades: while the Diagonal one is a typical example of how the architect reinterpreted the gothic facades of northern Europe, the Rosselló façade preserves the appearance of a typical party-wall house in Eixample.

This Wednesday’s tour will show visitors the lobby, two facades, roof terrace and function suite. Visits will last about 45 minutes