Two of Gaudí’s apartment buildings stand a few minutes’ walk apart on the same boulevard, both expensive, both excellent, and almost nobody visits both. The choice comes down to what you want out of an hour indoors: theatre or architecture. Here is what each actually gives you and how to decide without standing at a ticket desk comparing prices.
The two buildings
Casa Batlló is the fantasy. A remodelled townhouse whose facade is a shimmer of coloured glass and ceramic with balconies like masks and a roofline like the back of a dragon. Inside, the light well is tiled in a gradient of blues, the doorways curve, and nothing is a straight line. It is theatrical and it knows it.
Casa Milà is the architecture. A large corner apartment block of undulating stone with no straight edges and wrought-iron balconies like seaweed, built around two courtyards. Inside there is an exhibition on Gaudí’s structural thinking, a preserved period apartment, and a roof terrace that is the reason most people come.
What each visit is like
Casa Batlló leans into experience. The interior is presented with heavy use of light, sound and, in the higher ticket tiers, augmented reality, which some visitors find brilliant and others find a distraction from a building that did not need help. It is visually overwhelming in the best sense.
Casa Milà is quieter and more explanatory. The attic under the parabolic brick arches is genuinely fascinating if you care how the building stands up, the period apartment shows how people actually lived here, and the roof is extraordinary.
Both take about an hour, both are busy, and both are among the more expensive tickets in the city.
How to choose
Choose Casa Batlló if you want colour, fantasy and the more immediately dazzling interior, if you are travelling with older children, or if the facade is what drew you in.
Choose Casa Milà if you want to understand the architecture, if the roof terrace appeals, or if you prefer a calmer visit with more substance and less production.
Choose both if you have a genuine interest and can put them on different days, which stops the second one blurring into the first.
Choose neither if your Gaudí time is limited, since the basilica and the park are the two most people rank higher. Our Park Güell guide covers the outdoor alternative, which is far cheaper and which many visitors enjoy more.
Tickets, and the tier problem
This is where the actual money decision lives, and it is not between the two houses.
Both sell several tiers, from a basic timed entry through to versions that add a terrace visit, a quieter hour, a guided element or an evening show.
The spread between tiers is large, frequently larger than the difference between the two buildings.
Cheaper tiers are tied to particular time slots, usually the busiest ones.
Read what each includes rather than comparing headline prices, and decide whether the extras are things you want or things you are paying to avoid a crowd.
Book ahead in season, both because slots go and because comparing tiers at a desk with a queue behind you is how people overpay.
Seeing them for free
Both facades are on a busy public boulevard and standing on the pavement costs nothing.
Casa Batlló’s facade is genuinely extraordinary from outside and is lit after dark, which is a different and very good view.
Casa Milà’s stonework reads better from across the street, where you can see the whole undulation.
A great many visitors look at both from outside, pay to enter one, and consider that a good trade. It is.
The same boulevard holds a third famous house by a different architect, and the wider movement Gaudí belonged to is well worth an hour of attention; our guide to modernisme beyond Gaudí covers the buildings that are emptier, cheaper and frequently as good.
For how all of the Gaudí sites rank against each other on a short trip, our full Gaudí guide sets out the order.
The short version
Casa Batlló for fantasy, colour and the more theatrical interior; Casa Milà for architecture, the period apartment and a roof terrace of warrior chimneys that is the best single thing in either building. One is enough for most trips, since they are minutes apart and cover similar ground at similar prices. Compare the ticket tiers rather than the two houses, because that gap is bigger. And look at both facades from the pavement for nothing, whichever one you pay to enter.
