The current house was born from a fishermen’s hut Dalí acquired in 1930—to escape from the family home in Figueres—together with his latest amor fou and perennial muse, Gala. Both lived there until they moved to Paris in 1936, fleeing the Spanish Civil War, and later to America, fleeing the Second World War. They didn’t return to Spain until 1948.
From then on, they spent every summer at their home in Portlligat; in autumn, they went to the hotel Le Meurice in Paris and, after Christmas, to the St. Regis in New York. They always travelled by luxury liner—first on the British Cunard and later on Italian ships—since the Maestro hated flying.
As its faithful builder (and later mayor of Cadaqués), Emilio Puignau explained how every summer Dalí added another idea for expanding the house. He drew some sketches and gave them to Puignau, who interpreted them and made them a reality during the winter. In spring came the usual economic haggling with Gala. Naturally, this anarchic growth resulted in the intricate and chaotic labyrinth that can be visited today. You can understand how raising a floor without compromising the existing one means the inclined roof must be respected and the new floor built above it: this created an empty dihedral—a true small-town dungeon only accessible through a trapdoor located in the upper floor—which the painter used to store his canvases.
It’s funny, of the many hours I spent in this house, almost all of them were spent on the patio, at the pool, or in the artist’s studio. Although I had the opportunity to visit the rest of the rooms, we almost never sat down to chat in any of them, and as happy as the bright exterior spaces seemed to me, the interiors always seemed dark and oppressive, although full of mysterious, deeply personal objects. What I consider most significant today is the window kept open by the Maestro so he could wake up and see the sunrise every day. As Portlligat is located at the eastern end of the peninsula, Dalí claimed that he was the first Spaniard to see the sun rise.
Even if the kitsch baroque style of the house’s interior spaces may offend some sensibilities, there are two absolutely dazzling exterior spaces, al di là di ogni sospetto. One is the path running along the edge of the serene, tamed waters of Portlligat’s bay. Walking this path, all made of local grey slate, between olive trees and some cypresses to the little square where it ends, is a delicious, truly Mediterranean experience.
The second is the patio-garden at the entrance, the most beautiful part of the mansion. The rocks and walls surrounding it are completely whitewashed with lime. The ground is paved with large slabs of Cadaqués slate, broken up where the silver olive trees take root, two of them in enormous cups that act as planters. Rustic cattail chairs, vernacular Spanish chairs supported by six legs, recline daringly; it’s all so austere, so essential. Dalí insisted the beautiful restraint of the place had been preserved thanks to Gala’s radical opposition to him contaminating it with his crazy antics. In fact, the only really kitsch elements on the scene are sinks carved in low relief (modelled on Barcelona-based Roca’s advertising from the time), in luminous alcoves that Dalí lit with childish joy at dusk; but even they fail to break the garden’s delicate harmony.
However, we can admit that the rear garden, the one with the pool where the painter had full reign, is the absolute apotheosis of Dalinian kitsch. In this space, Gala failed to moderate her lover’s imagination, loaded with bad taste, exuberant and brilliant though it was. Here, the artist designed to his heart’s content. Dalí had a small pool built with a clearly phallic outline. Puignau assures us that what the Maestro intended and commissioned was meant to resemble the pond in the Alhambra’s Generalife gardens. An homage that is, theoretically, reinforced by the streams flowing from some tiny swans located at the edge, alongside a tacky rendition of the Generalife’s Fuente de los Leones topped with little liquor bottles shaped like bullfighters with capes at the edge of the pool.
On one side of the pool, Dalí had a kind of altarpiece built with a construction dumpster painted in marble effect with figurines of dolphins, children, and a manger all piled up underneath. Above the container rests another Fuente de los Leones topped by an elephant, all crowned by the huntress Diana. He also added a telephone booth (Spanish and closed, of course, since the open booths in New York are worthless. Anyone can kick you in the balls as you’re making your call.), another lips sofa upholstered in pink synthetic leather, advertising recesses with Pirelli tires moulded in plastic, some luminous Michelin Man figures, a round camel advertising the eponymous cigarettes. Clearly, Dalí didn’t react to the invasion of pop art with the same rejection as many eminent abstract artists.
A temple with a somewhat peculiar shape stands in the background. At most, Dalí supplied Puignau with a sketch to complement some verbal explanation. In this case, he offered some expanded polyurethane packaging from a radio he’d just received (packaging he’d later show us very proudly, still on display in the house) and commissioned Puignau to build an identical form, but about 20 times larger. Later, he finished the temple’s decoration. In the centre, he placed the great antique optics of the Cap de Creus lighthouse, and around it an elephant skull, a wooden donkey, a stuffed lion, a fake white owl, a lamp (designed by the Maestro based on the structure of DNA), a hammock (also his design), Arabesque pillows, and long polychrome padded snakes, a gift from Mijanou Bardot (Brigitte’s sister). We spent hours there chatting and discussing architecture, Borromini, cinema, painting, Velázquez and Vermeer, Italy, Bomarzo, the punk movement, Francesc Pujols, monarchy and parliamentarism.
Fifty-seven years have passed since that first visit, and my memories are inevitably tangled with those of countless subsequent encounters. But the mark left on me by the most original, intelligent, and delightful person I have ever met has been indelible.
This is an extract from Casa Dalí, photographed by Coco Capitán and published by Apartamento (2023)
