A Baroque Gaudí building

Built at the end of the 19th century for the textile trader Pere Màrtir Calvet, who used part of the building for his business and another as a residence, Casa Calvet is considered by experts as the most conservative work by the architect Antoni Gaudí. It has also been a Chinese imperial-cuisine restaurant since 2019, run by the chef Yihai Zhang. Its name is “China Crown” and its speciality is Peking duck.

Casa Calvet is located in Carrer Casp, very near Plaça Urquinaona. It is the first of three houses which Antoni Gaudí designed in the Eixample.Its Baroque style gives it an unusual, austere look and marks a time of transition between two stages in the architect’s career: the first, when he still made personal reinterpretations of different historical styles, and the second, when he showed that he was free from any conditioning factor.

Winner of the annual best building award granted by Barcelona City Council in 1900,Casa Calvet stands out for the facade on which Gaudí worked with Lluís Badia on the wrought iron balconies, and the carpenter Casas i Barde on the woodwork. Built in dressed stone from Montjuïc, it is decorated with structures of religious busts of Sant Pere Màrtir and the saints of Calvet’s home town. The main gallery is also profusely decorated with an olive tree as a symbol of peace, a cypress tree as a symbol of hospitality, and the shield of Catalonia.

Modernista touches

In spite of its Baroque style,Modernista features can be seen on the facade, in the curved shape of the iron balconies, the glass balcony which overhangs the entrance and the columns in the shape of bobbins which flank the entrance in an allusion to the trader’s profession.

The first work by Gaudí in the Eixample is a unique testimony to his work, which enables you to observe and delight in the evolution of his architecture over time, and also, if you have the chance,to taste the delicious Mediterranean cuisine.