What to Look For on the Façade

The eye is drawn first to the central tribuna, a two-storey bay that crowns the heart of the façade. It opens in round arches framed by paired columns, and the Italianate windows of the first and second floors, together with the sculpted crowning element above, give the elevation its stately rhythm. To the sides, stone balconies and—on the upper floor—neo-Baroque ornamental details worked into the lintels reward a closer second look.↗↗↗

If you can catch a glimpse into the entrance hall, the building keeps more period charm: a glass-fronted portería with a wooden grille, marble columns topped with Corinthian capitals, a stone staircase rising from the vestibule, a dainty light well, and—still in service in townhouses like this one across the Eixample—an antique lift made by the famed Cardellach firm.↗↗

The Perfume Museum in the Back Room

Like most Eixample buildings, Casa Bonet gives its ground floor over to shops, and here that means the Perfumería Regia, a fragrance house trading since 1928 and now something of a Passeig de Gràcia institution. Its true treasure sits behind the counter: tucked in the back room, old-style-shop fashion, is the Museu del Perfum (Fundació Planas Giralt), opened in 1961 and, in its field, among the best small collections anywhere.↗↗

The museum is a private labour of love built up year by year by the Planas family, and it charts the vessels that have held scent through the ages rather than the perfume itself—which, unlike wine, fades. Early cabinets could pass for an archaeology museum: alabastrons, lekythoi, amphorae and tiny unguent jars from Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Arab and Oriental cultures. Later groupings sort bottles by craft—coloured glass, cut crystal, enamel, silver, mother-of-pearl, ivory—while a final section rounds out the industrial age with thousands of flacons, boxes and labels from perfume houses the world over.↗↗

Standout pieces to hunt for: the almorratxes, delicate coloured-glass vessels shaped like little water pitchers with slender spouts for pouring perfume and cologne; a burgundy leather case in the form of a book, once belonging to Marie Antoinette, with her crest and that of the French king engraved in gold; and a bottle designed by Salvador Dalí in 1946, the "Le Roi Soleil," its big stopper modelled as a sun with a face conjured from a flight of birds.↗↗

Visiting

Casa Bonet is a private townhouse, so treat the exterior as a public gallery: stand on the opposite pavement and set its cool classicism head-on against the Modernista exuberance of its neighbours to feel what makes the Block of Discord "discordant." The entrance hall is a residence, so don't assume you can wander through—admire what is visible from the threshold.

The Perfumería Regia and its Museu del Perfum are the practical draw, right on one of Barcelona's grandest boulevards and easy to fold into a stroll that takes in Casa Batlló, Casa Amatller and Casa Lleó i Morera nearby. Check the museum's own current opening times before you plan a stop, and combine the visit with a wander down the rest of the Passeig de Gràcia, where design, flagship stores and façade-hopping line the entire street.↗↗