Barcelona Open House 2026: No Gaudí buildings will be open, and Sant Pau will open six of its entrances

The homepage of 48hopenhousebarcelona.org states it clearly: "Open doors on October 24th and 25th," and below that, "The 2026 Festival will be held on October 24th and 25th." The Catalan News agency published it on October 6th with the same dates and one more detail: it's the 17th edition. This is important because there's a common misunderstanding, and that is that the 16th edition was in 2025, on October 25th and 26th.

So far, everything is clear. The problem arises when you open the "how it works" page of the festival itself, which is where you go to find out how to get in. Its header mentions the weekend of October 24th and 25th, and its "Dates to remember" section lists three dates from the 2026 calendar. But further down, in the "Geographic scope" section, there is this:

Here are the dates from last year, with the seven municipalities from last year. Two paragraphs later, the same page continues to say that "the 2025 edition of the 48h Open House BCN architecture festival will be in person," and at the end, it suggests the hashtags #ohb25. This is the 2025 section that no one removed.

The practical consequence is small but real: in the 2026 program, there are six cities participating, not seven. Badalona, Barcelona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sant Joan Despí, Sitges, and Vilassar de Dalt. Santa Coloma de Gramenet is not on the schedule for this edition, and anyone who relies on that information will go to a city where nothing is open. We had a similar experience with another city event: the website for La Mercè displayed three different sets of dates on the same page.

Since we're talking about numbers, someone will have to count them, because no one has done so yet. The festival itself publishes four different figures regarding its attendance:

• The cover says "over 220 spaces."
• The footer of every page on the website states "over 250 buildings."
• The operational page states, "207 activities (buildings and routes) are offered."
• The press release, as reported by Catalan News, states that there are 217 buildings, 63 of which are new, and seven itineraries.

And then there's the schedule, which is the document that people actually use. It's the PDF file PROGRAMACIO_OHB26_web_1.pdf, seven pages long, with columns for zone, name, time, address, and a column indicating whether registration is required. Counting them individually, there are 222 entries. The numbering goes up to 225, but numbers 35, 64, and 156 are missing, and all three omissions fall exactly at a page break; they were lost during the layout process.

Of those 222 activities, 10 are itineraries (not seven), and two are guided tours in Vilassar de Dalt. And 22 require prior registration. That is to say, 200 activities can be visited by simply showing up at the door, and that is the figure used for planning.

All events are scheduled for Saturday, the 24th. The venue is not specified for Sunday.

The last row deserves a minute. From 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM is not just any hour: the Sant Pau site closes its paid visits at 6:30 PM from April to October, according to its own website. The Open House itinerary literally begins when the time slot that can be purchased ends. That time slot does not exist at the ticket office, no matter the price.

And the reference price, which was checked again on October 14, 2026, on santpaubarcelona.org, is as follows: the general admission costs 18 € until 2:00 PM and 17 € from 2:00 PM onwards. It is the only price that decreases in the afternoon that we have found throughout the entire modernist circuit of the city.

This is the part that isn't on any "things to see at the open house" list, and it's the reason the trip is worthwhile for anyone who has come to Barcelona specifically to see Gaudí's work.

Josep Maria Jujol i Gibert (Tarragona, 1879 – Barcelona, 1949) is the man who, with his own hands, created a significant portion of what is photographed as Gaudí's work. The Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana summarizes it succinctly: from the time he finished his studies in 1906, he worked with Gaudí and collaborated on La Pedrera, Park Güell, and the renovation of the cathedral of Mallorca, and he was "the most qualified artist in the circle of collaborators that Gaudí formed in his workshop-school at the Sagrada Família." The mosaic work on the undulating benches of Park Güell came from there.

Jujol was also the municipal architect of Sant Joan Despí, in the Baix Llobregat region, just outside Barcelona and with its own train station. The Department of Culture of the Generalitat describes what he did there with a phrase that is not found in brochures: he transformed the town into his "laboratory of architectural experiments." And Sant Joan Despí contributes to this edition with fifteen entries, including its two largest buildings, free of charge and without registration.

The Torre de la Creu, built in 1913, is known as Torre dels Ous because of the shape of its domes; it was Jujol's first commission in the town. Can Negre is a 17th-century farmhouse that he renovated, and it is the building with which Sant Joan Despí identifies: the facade's gallery is shaped like a carriage. Both are visited on both days, without asking anything from anyone.

Just a small detail for those who want to plan carefully: both places are open in the morning and afternoon on Sundays, but only in the afternoon on Saturdays. Saturday morning is reserved for the Sant Pau event. They fit together perfectly.

Within Barcelona, the 2026 program has less Art Nouveau than its reputation suggests, and it is spread out. These are the stops with genuine Art Nouveau or Gaudí-related interest, along with the area where the festival groups them. None require registration. The actual distances between one stop and the next, for the days of the year when they need to be paid, are in our walking routes through the Eixample.

Here are two clarifications about that table, because these are the kinds of details that guides often get wrong.

The Palau Macaya is not by Gaudí. It was designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch for the industrialist Roman Macaya Gibert, and the stone sculptures are by Eusebi Arnau and Alfons Juyol. The family lived there until 1914; "La Caixa" bought it in 1947, and today it is their social center, which is the reason why it is open to the public. The City Council has designated it as a cultural asset of national interest since 1973. It is, without a doubt, the most striking building on the list, and it is open for nine consecutive hours on Saturdays.

The Casa Sayrach is indeed in the Gaudinian style, and its authorship has a footnote. The Modernism Route attributes it to Manuel Sayrach i Carreras, who was a declared admirer of Gaudí and his idea of taking nature as a model, but it was not named until 1917: the building's plans, from 1915-1918, were signed by the architect Gabriel Borrell. During the Open House, only the lobbies are visited, not the floors.

The information about Gràcia mentions a detail: the festival calls it "Antics Tallers Manyach (Escola Josep Maria Jujol)," and the school is named after Jujol. What the Encyclopedia documents about the Mañac family is the renovation of their shop on Ferran Street in 1911, which is a different building. If you're looking for a work signed by Jujol, you're sure to find one in Sant Joan Despí.

The value of the Open House event isn't just about visiting buildings. There are several sites that can be visited any day of the year for a fee, and those two days are included in the program. The prices listed in this table were verified on the official websites on October 14, 2026, as that's the only way to ensure that a price is accurate.

The MNAC has a detail that changes the calculation, and that almost no one notices. Its website explains that admission is free every Saturday starting at 3:00 PM and on the first Sunday of each month. October 25, 2026, is not the first Sunday, and the Open House ticket is for Sunday morning: in that case, the free admission is genuine, and it saves you the €12. On Saturday the 24th, however, it would have been free starting at 3:00 PM anyway.

The last two rows of the table intentionally say "paid entry, all year" instead of a specific number. The prices were not reviewed on the day this was published, and we preferred to leave the space blank rather than copy a number from two months ago.

Here's the only small print for the weekend, and it's now published. The 22 slots that require registration – the guided tours and infrastructure buildings, which the organization reserves for security reasons – will open for reservations on Monday, October 19, 2026. Before that day, there's nothing to reserve; after that, the guided tours are the ones that sell out the fastest.

And a phrase from the official website contradicts the idea of a "free weekend": when registration is managed by Eventbrite, each person can reserve up to two tickets, and each one costs €3 to cover administrative fees. Children need their own ticket. It's not the price of the building itself, but it comes from the same pocket, and for a family visit of four, it's €12.

The rest of the program, the 200 tickets without a specific time slot, operates on a first-come, first-served basis. The organizers publish a map that shows, in real-time, where there are more and fewer people, and they announce updates on their social media channels. They also mark the buildings with high demand with a red circle on the schedule. Checking the map before crossing the city can save you a lot of waiting time.

Two of the most sought-after modernist buildings will be unavailable during the weekend, and it's best to know this before making plans. The Palau de la Música Catalana, the other major work by Domènech i Montaner, does not have availability in the 2026 program. The Casa Amatller, by Puig i Cadafalch, is also unavailable. And, as mentioned before, fewer of Gaudí's four major works are available.

There is also a street name coincidence that can be confusing. The Universitat CEU Abat Oliba is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, and it is located at carrer de Bellesguard, 30: the same short street where Gaudí built the Torre Bellesguard. The university is free to visit that weekend; the tower is not. They are two distinct visits on the same street, and they should not be confused when you arrive.

If what you're looking for is modernism that isn't by Gaudí, our page about Gaudí and Catalan Modernism explains who did what and why they are so often confused. And if what you're looking for is Gaudí without paying, the Open House weekend doesn't offer anything that isn't already in the Hidden Gaudí: the pavilions of the Güell Estate from the gate, the lampposts in Plaça Reial, the facade of Casa Vicens from the street.

A final suggestion, in case the festival sparks a desire to explore further. The modernist route of Baix Llobregat, published by the Generalitat, begins at the crypt of the Colònia Güell, continues to Sant Joan Despí by Jujol, and ends at La Rajoleta in Esplugues, the kilns of the former Pujol i Bausis factory, where the ceramics were fired that Gaudí, Puig i Cadafalch, and Domènech i Montaner commissioned. The three buildings featured in Open House and the three architects mentioned in this note all came from the same kiln.