Pavilions of the Güell Estate

The dragon on this gate has a specific name, and it's not that of Saint George. It is Ladón, the dragon that guarded the garden of the Hesperides and whom Hercules killed. The reference is concrete: L'Atlàntida, the epic poem by Jacint Verdaguer. Gaudí wasn't decorating a door with a creature; he was illustrating a book.

And there is more precision than meets the eye. The dragon is positioned according to the outline of the constellation of Draco, so the figure is also a map of the sky. On the pillar that supports the blade, there is an antimony tree of the Hesperides, thus completing the mythological scene: the guardian, the tree, and the golden apples it guarded.

The eyes are made of glass. The wrought ironwork is by Joan Oñós, the same blacksmith who created the wrought iron gate of the Casa Vicens and the two serpents at the entrance of the Palau Güell. If there's a piece of ironwork in Barcelona that you can recognize from ten meters away, it almost always comes from his workshop.

It's best to clarify this beforehand, because the expectation is often different. Gaudí did not design the main house of the estate. The Can Custó farmhouse had been purchased in 1859 by Joan Güell i Ferrer, Eusebi's father, and it was Eusebi who expanded the property to over three hectares. What he commissioned Gaudí to design, between 1884 and 1887, were four elements: the perimeter wall, the gatehouse, the stables, and the riding arena.

Of the four original gates of the enclosure, three remain, although altered, and the Font d'Hèrcules still stands. Those who pass through the gate expecting a Gaudí-esque mansion behind it will not find one, and not because it was lost: it never existed.

There was also a piece that was here and is no longer. In 1881, Gaudí built a kiosk for the visit of Alfonso XII to Comillas, on August 6th; in 1883 it was moved to this estate, and from then on it disappeared, and sources do not say what happened to it. It is one of several works by Gaudí of which only the mention is preserved today.

It's worth mentioning where the capital came from, because the details of the monument's funding are often overlooked. The farmhouse was purchased in 1859 by Joan Güell i Ferrer, and his fortune, according to available sources, was amassed as a slave owner in Cuba. This is not a minor detail: it is the economic foundation upon which much of the patronage that is visited today was built.

His son, Eusebi Güell (1846-1918), married Isabel López i Bru, daughter of the Marquis of Comillas, and was named Count in 1910. He commissioned six works from Gaudí over forty years, and this was one of the first. Without that relationship, almost nothing of what is shown today would exist: the Raval palace, the Park Güell, and the crypt of Santa Coloma all came from the same source of funding.

Few of Gaudí's buildings contain so much misinformation per square meter, and almost all of it is of a specific type: it's not charming folklore, but rather administrative errors that are copied without verification. This table organizes and clarifies these inaccuracies.

This deserves a separate explanation because it is the one that is most widely circulated. At the entrance of the riding school, there is a ceramic covering that is mentioned everywhere as the first appearance of "trencadís" in Gaudí's work. This statement appears in the "Trencadís" entry on the Catalan Wikipedia, and from there it has been copied to dozens of articles, but it does not have a reference, and a second verification does not support it.

Facing us is a solid fact: the chimneys on the roof of the Palau Güell, from 1886 to 1890, made with ceramics from the Pujol i Bausis factory, are the first documented application. It's possible that the use of ceramic tiles was earlier, since the pavilions date from 1884-1887, and the chronology fits. However, fitting chronologically is not the same as being documented, and that difference is exactly what separates a fact from a repeated assumption over forty years.

The pavilions have been owned by the Universitat de Barcelona since 1969. The confusion with the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya has a specific and very reasonable cause: the Reial Càtedra Gaudí, which belongs to the UPC, had its headquarters within the grounds, in the stables, for decades. Regarding the year in which the fountains were installed, sources provide 1968 and 1977; they were removed in 2008. The grounds also house the botanical garden of the Faculty of Biology.

The archive of that chair deserves a paragraph, because it explains many questionable attributions. Its digitalized collection contains 206 items, of which 138 belong to Joan Matamala and only 22 to Gaudí. This doesn't mean that Gaudí is absent from the archive: the paper collection contains around one hundred thousand documents, and the absence online doesn't prove the absence in the repository. However, it does explain why so many attributions to Gaudí actually come from drawings by other artists.

Behind that, there is a structural reason, and it has a name. Francesc Berenguer i Mestres (1866-1914) left his architecture studies without obtaining the degree, so he could not sign projects, and the College of Architects of Catalonia states it plainly: it is common to find projects of his signed by Gaudí. The consequence is uncomfortable and must be accepted: a signature by Gaudí does not prove that the project is by Gaudí. He worked alongside him from 1887 until his death, and when he lost him, Gaudí said that he had lost his right hand.

The pavilions opened to the public in 2015 and have been listed as closed for works since June 2018. We have not been able to verify where that renovation stands now, so here it remains what it is: a status pending confirmation, not a permanent fact. Before making the trip, it is worth checking the Universitat de Barcelona website.

The good thing is that what almost everyone comes to see doesn't depend on that. The dragon gate faces the street and can be viewed from the sidewalk, with the enclosure open or closed, for free and at any time. It's one of the few works by Gaudí for which this is true, and that's why it also appears on the list of Gaudí works that can be seen without paying.