An auditorium built in 1908 to house the Orfeo Catalan choir, this complex confection, a product of Catalonia’s “Renaixenca” (renaissance) cultural movement, commands great attention and affection from visitors. It’s red brick exterior is festooned with an agglomeration of colorful floral mosaics and the madly busy, deeply indented and incised ornamentation that marks Barcelonan architecture from the Gaudi era. It is one of the few theaters or music halls worldwide to have been declared a World Heritage Site.

The Renaixenca was intended as a rediscovery and revitalization of Catalonian culture, which had always been in tension with the dominant Madrid-oriented Castilian culture. At the same time, modernist currents were sweeping through Barcelona, Spain’s biggest, most sophisticated seaport. They inspired an architecture that, while it veered away from the stiff formality of the late 19^th century’s neo-classicism, refused to surrender a regional fascination with color, ceramic adornment or the juxtaposition of sometimes radically different textures.