NEW YORK - Christie’s is pleased to present “Casa Batlló: Living Architecture” a monumental generative artwork inspired by Casa Batlló’s iconic façade, created by Turkish-American media artist and director Refik Anadol as a highlight of the 21st Century Evening Sale taking place live at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on 10 May 2022. “Casa Batlló: Living Architecture” (estimate: $1 million - 2 million USD) is the only NFT that will be offered within the 5-day series of Christie’s Spring Marquee Weeksales. The auction will be live streamed to viewers worldwide on christies.com on the date of the sale.

The artwork “Casa Batlló: Living Architecture” is the first UNESCO World Heritage Site to take the form of live (constantly changing) NFT (using climate data from the city collected in real-time and showing ephemeris being celebrated on the Casa Batlló façade). Making it a unique and surprising work. 10% of the proceeds from the sale of this unique piece will be donated to the Associació Aprenem Autisme and Fundació Adana institutions.

 “Casa Batlló: Living Architecture”, a monumental and multisensory experience, will be installed outdoors in Rockefeller Plaza during the Christie’s 20th / 21st Century Marquee Week exhibition beginning April 30, as well as via mapping projection and exhibition at Casa Batlló in Barcelona on May 7, three days prior to the auction.

Gaudí and Anadol: Architects of the Future

“Casa Batlló: Living Architecture” is the culmination of the collaboration between Casa Batlló and Refik Anadol. Exactly one year ago, Casa Batlló launched its new immersive, award-winning tour of Gaudí’s masterpiece, conceived as a journey –with exclusive soundtrack, audio-story, installations and digital rooms– redefining the museum experience and connecting to new and younger audiences worldwide.

For the museum tour’s grand finale, Casa Batlló commissioned Refik Anadol for the piece “In the Mind of Gaudí”, to be performed in the world’s first six-walls LED cube room, a 360-experience through AI and visual sculpting inside a 6-screen space set up at the building’s basement, to instant acclaim. “Casa Batlló: Living Architecture” will bring this Gaudí façade both to the forefront in our cultural collective memory as well as establish its place in the digital space in this historic sale.

Gary Gautier, Casa Batlló’s Manager, reflects on choosing Refik Anadol to propel Gaudí’s legacy into the heritage of tomorrow:

“Casa Batlló’s mission is to amplify Gaudí’s magic, and Refik Anadol is the perfect fellow traveler for this journey. His work resides between art and technology, expands the possibilities of architecture, and brings a new outlook beyond space and time. Refik connects past, present, and future, reminding us of the innovative, humanist and visionary Gaudí.”

Reflecting on the challenge of reinterpreting Gaudí’s work and principles, Pioneering AI Artist and Digital Architect Refik Anadol comments,

“Gaudí is an amazing inspiration for any creator and Casa Batlló a dream work to dive into. From its organic architecture, inspired in nature, to the smallest details on its many mosaics, it is a privilege to reinterpret such an alive legacy and bring it to the 21st century, guided by Artificial Intelligence.”

Beatriz Ordovas, Christie’s Head of Post-War & Contemporary, Iberia, remarks,

“It is a pleasure Christie’s to present this groundbreaking work by Refik Anadol, one of the leading digital artists in the space, in collaboration with Casa Batlló. This is a remarkable work which has brought back to life Gaudi´s most iconic building, using environmental data gathered in real-time. ‘Casa Batlló: Living Architecture’ not only brings a new vibrant experience for the viewer but it has also created a new narrative in the NFT world.”

A Historic Auction for the Neurodiversity

Casa Batlló is committed to seeking integration and diversity of workers. Since the beginning of 2021, it has had an entire neurodivergent visitor care team of 50+ people (with autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, etc.), thanks to the strategic alliance with social organization Specialisterne. Therefore, the artist will donate a portion of proceeds from the auction to two local institutions specialized in comprehensive care and family support for people with neurodivergence: Aprenem Autisme Association and Adana Foundation. The Association has an annual attendance of more than 6,000 people working towards the inclusion of people with autism through a family care program, and the Foundation offers ongoing treatment to more than 900 children and young adults, from early diagnosis to therapeutic plan.

Refik Anadol, a pioneering artist for the new digital paradigm

Refik Anadol (b. 1985, Istanbul, Turkey) is a media artist, director and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. His body of work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. In taking the data that flows around us as the primary material and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol paints with a thinking brush, offering us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expanding the possibilities of architecture, narrative, and the body in motion.  

Anadol’s site-specific AI data sculptures and paintings, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms and encourage us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, its temporal and spatial dimensions, and the creative potential of machines.

Casa Batlló: An Art Nouveau Icon and Gaudí’s Creative Peak

Casa Batlló is a masterpiece by Gaudí, one of the greatest architects of all time, created in his heyday. Conceived in its artistic maturity and total creative freedom, Casa Batlló is a eulogy for happiness, a marine-inspired canvas, and an oneiric world that evokes nature and fantasy.

Its facade is the gateway to this symbolic universe, and contemplating it inspires feelings that have a continuous dialogue with light and color in the background. Its spectacular nature leaves no one indifferent and makes passers-by stop to look at it at any time of the day. Exuberant and marine, it contains involuntary sculptures, recycled materials, and decontextualized objects he turned into art.

Timeline leading to the auction:

April 30 - May 13: Installation in Rockefeller Plaza, New York

May 7: Façade Mapping Projection 9:30PM, 10:00PM, 10:30PM, 11:00PM and 11:30PM CEST and NFT Exhibition Opening, Casa Batlló, Barcelona

May 10, 7PM EDT: 21st Century Evening Sale at Christie’s, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York

About Casa Batlló

Casa Batlló is one of the masterpieces of Antoni Gaudí, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2005 for its outstanding universal value. Located on Passeig de Gràcia, the heart of Barcelona, Casa Batlló's purpose is to make people happy through art by creating exciting and surprising experiences that amplify the magic of Gaudí.

This monument has become a myth of art, architecture, and design, combining exemplary care of Heritage with the success of innovative museum proposals that have exceeded one million visitors a year. Its new immersive visit released a year ago has already been awarded numerous international awards, including "Best Landmark 2021".

Gaudí's work represents an outstanding creative contribution to the development of architecture and construction technology at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, exhibiting an essential exchange of values associated with the cultural and artistic currents of his time, as represented in the Modernism of Catalonia.

The monument applies sustainability principles that have distinguished it with the Biosphere Responsible Tourism seal, participating in multiple initiatives framed within the roadmap of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) promoted by the UN. Its commitment to autism stands out in this area, as it is the first international cultural entity with a team of neurodivergent people attending visitors