Quarter of Discord

Brief information

On one short stretch of Passeig de Gracia, five neighboring houses became an architectural argument without words. In the early 20th century, they were remodeled by different masters of Catalan Modernisme, and each facade was meant to look more convincing than the next. So the “discord” here is not about ruins or a conflict between owners, but about conspicuous rivalry in a small area.

The name works in two senses at once. It refers to the myth of the apple of discord, while the Spanish word manzana means both “apple” and “city block.” This pun helps you read the place more precisely: before you is not a single monument, but a row of houses where urban rules, bourgeois fashion, and the freedom to remodel facades turned ordinary Eixample development into a showcase of Modernisme.

What to notice first

The main focus is comparing neighboring facades, not searching for a single style. The traditional group includes houses 35, 37, 39, 41, and 43 between Carrer del Consell de Cent and Carrer d'Arago. Casa Lleo i Morera stands on the corner with Carrer del Consell de Cent; next come Casa Mulleras, Casa Bonet, Casa Amatller, and Casa Batllo. This dense proximity explains why the rivalry between architects became noticeable precisely here.

It is worth noticing the boundary of the group itself: from an urban-planning point of view, house 45 belongs to the same block, but it is usually not included in the “Block of Discord.” This conventional line shows that the place is defined not by the cadastre, but by the expressiveness of its facades. The rounded forms and decorative “excesses,” which the press compared to cakes, castles, and faces, now read as the reason for an old debate about how much fantasy a city street can bear.