Cases dels Canonges

Cases dels Canonges is a historic group of buildings in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, beside the Cathedral and Palau de la Generalitat. Three main façades display Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles across the complex. Up to eight interior courtyards give the buildings varied spaces behind their street fronts.

Cathedral canons moved into individual houses here after communal living ended, although documented construction begins in the seventeenth century. Later, artisans and other residents shared these homes, while nineteenth-century ownership disputes helped protect them from redevelopment. A major twentieth-century restoration added Gothic-style stonework, sgraffito, majolica tiles, and Baroque decoration, reshaping much of the earlier fabric. Joan Rubió i Bellver designed the covered neo-Gothic bridge over Carrer del Bisbe in 1928.

The building on Carrer del Bisbe serves as the official residence of Catalonia’s Generalitat president. Francesc Macià and Lluís Companys lived here, and Josep Tarradellas returned to the residence in 1977. Companys’s old desk remains among the reminders of that political history. A rooftop terrace also recalls where Macià’s wife spent time with her grandchildren.