Casa Calvet

This guide to Casa Calvet in Barcelona opens with a city inspector telling a young, stubborn architect named Antoni Gaudí that his 1899 design broke height regulations, and the defiant answer Gaudí gave Barcelona's council. It follows the building he made for textile manufacturer Pere Màrtir Calvet, reading the private jokes carved into its facade: thread-spool columns, mushroom caps, and stone portraits of family saints. Look for the iron door knocker shaped like a cross before you hear how the standoff with the council was resolved.