Barcelona Modernisme: Off the Tourist Trail

Manuel Sayrach's 1918 answer to Gaudí — wavy balconies, organic stone carving, a roofline that ripples like water. On a busy stretch of Diagonal that everyone drives past and almost no one looks up at

Gaudí's very first major work (1885), predating the Sagrada Família — Oriental tiles, Moorish arches, and a wrought-iron gate of palm leaves. In a quiet Gràcia street and still receives a fraction of the attention it deserves

Puig i Cadafalch's most audacious facade — Gothic-Flemish stone carving on one side, a Japanese-influenced gallery on the other. Now the Institut Ramon Llull; the street-level facade is free to admire from five centimetres away

Six witch-hat towers on a triangular Eixample block — Puig i Cadafalch's 1905 Neo-Gothic castle dropped into the middle of the grid. Has a paid museum inside but the exterior from the pavement is free and astonishing at any angle

Domènech i Montaner's 1879 Editorial Montaner i Simón — a Mudéjar-influenced brick publishing house topped with Tàpies's wire sculpture. The building itself is the exhibit; the foundation inside shows serious contemporary art

Puig i Cadafalch at his most refined — a white Gothic courtyard palace on Passeig de Sant Joan that now hosts La Caixa cultural exhibitions. Free to enter during shows, and the courtyard alone justifies ringing the bell