Architects Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue’s home is hidden in one of those typical inner courtyards that only the Gothic Quarter – one of the most popular neighborhoods for tourists, of an amazing city like Barcelona – can give. The home of the Italian-born architect Benedetta Tagliabue – founder in 1994 of the EMBT studio, with her partner Enric Miralles (1955-2000) – is the result of a shared life of research, travel, surprises, and full of details and recovered objects.

The house consists of more than 600 square meters on three floors. An abandoned warehouse used by architects Miralles and Tagliabue to experiment with and discover the old house while designing its new features, adapting it to their own needs. On the ground floor, the wide and bright space is divided into several areas that open onto other rooms. Most of these are characterized by ‘carpets of light’ – as Benedetta calls them. Namely, carpets of concrete tile paving embellished with special decorations, and wonderful period frescoes in pastel colors, expertly recovered and restored by the couple, that create visual and chromatic games within the different rooms. These are organized fluidly. 

The great room – with the mezzanine framing it, set in an old Gothic arcade, is filled with books and memorabilia – is used in daily life but for meetings with studio colleagues too. A long central table (Tronco) designed from two large wooden parts, signed by the two architects, is lit by a Fortuny chandelier, and complemented by a series of Alison and Peter Smithson’s chairs, lined up one behind the other. In the background, a prototype, ochre-colored shell of Charles and Ray Eames’s rocking chair is contrasted with an imposing Tyrolean stove in delightful white majolica, while we glimpse the tail of the black piano that faces the room.

In the adjacent study there is the table from where Miralles liked to enjoy the different views of the house and have the impression of ruling it. On the walls, several layers of paintings dating back to the 1700s can be seen under the wallpaper, which have been restored, interspersed with bands of color. The room features another Eames piece, their classic 1956 Lounge Chair (Vitra) in black leather with a wooden shell, and two low tables made with an experimental system they were testing in the studio in the late 1990s.

In addition, again in this room we find a closet made from an antique front door, a chair from Japan and a table also designed by the studio complemented by an office chair also by the Eames from the Aluminium Chair EA series. Repeated on the floor are carpets of light made of concrete tiles and cutouts of iroko wood parquet as well as the Dolmen table placed on the mezzanine is made of iroko. Louis Poulsen lamps, with a special coupling system that allows half-height, complete the room’s furnishings.

The room near the entrance features a solid wood table designed by the studio with several objects dear for them on it; two glass balls from Mexico, vases with flowers and a pendant lamp again by Poulsen while the boys’ bedroom has a large map from the 1990s bought from American Airlines, a pile of books and a closet on the left made from large, recycled dressers. “The room is messy. When we took the photos there was air conditioning work; usually all these items are in the mezzanine,” architect Tagliabue adds. The kitchen – the heart of the house – has a central island made of artificial stone. On the wall, an antique sink made of marble, also recovered, and in the background a cream-colored square tile covering with a central flower design, original to the period, reflects the life of the house. In the hanging garden, located above street level, there is the ancient fountain for refreshment and two fruit trees, a persimmon, and a fig tree.

The garden leads to the terrace characterized by tropical plants, next to the garage where Miralles’ Mercedes is parked. The house has a special indoor pool, built in 2005, that overlooks the hanging garden. The space had a fireplace that has been kept in its original location, unusually placed just above the pool. The ceiling is made of curved bricks and steel profiles. Unusual, but effective too, is the combination of the pool with Gaetano Pesce’s famous armchair made for B&B ‘Up 5’, in the red-and-white striped version, while a painting by Alex Duncan depicting Mont Blanc closes the view at the back.

The walls of this house are unique. They are always full of information, colors, signs, such as the pencil drawings born from Miralles’ hand and still visible. The house plays with its users by offering itself as if it were ‘a chessboard’ – Miralles said in an interview with Research Lines in 1997. The furnishings move and shift as needed, but despite these shifts, they always manage to find their original position thanks to the carpets of tiles and from the marks left by time, thus creating an endless game.