Colònia Güell factory village. The Colonia Guell factory village is located 25 minutes drive from Barcelona in the municipality of Santa Coloma de Cervelló. Colonia Guell is home to a hidden treasure by Antoni Gaudí which is called the Gaudí Crypt.
Apart from the Gaudi crypt the Colonia Guell village is a lovely place to visit if you love modernist architecture. Choose from guided tours, audioguides, dramatised tours and more. Colonia Guell has recreational areas, car and bus parking.
Colònia Güell was built in 1890 by Eusebi Güell, who was a prominent Catalan businessman and a patron of Antoni Gaudi who he commissioned for other famous Gaudi structures in Barcelona including Park Guell and Guell's town house Palau Guell.
Colonia Guell was conceived as a factory village. At the time Guell owned a textile mill in Barcelona in the village of Sants, which in those days was a village outside the Barcelona city centre.
However, growing social unrest and worker conflicts in Barcelona prompted Guell build a new factory and workers village that would be even further away from Barcelona.
The intention was partly to provide better conditions for the workers, partly to have a bigger and more modern factory and also to keep the workers further from and isolated from the many 'revolutionary' ideas that were circulating among factory workers in Barcelona.
The new site that Guell chose for his new textile factory was his own 'Can Soler de la Torre' estate in the village of "Santa Coloma de Cervelló." The textile factory still stands today. It has been renovated and is used as business premises.
Adjancent to the factory area, you can visit the historic Colonia Guell factory village, where you will find many fine houses in the modernist style including the UNESCO World Heritage site of Gaudi's crypt in the unfinished church of Colonia Guell. The Crypt is a church of twisted columns and the laboratory for Gaudi's famous Sagrada Família church in Barcelona.
How to get to Colonia Guell from Barcelona By train: Take the FGC train from station 'Plaça Espanya' in Barcelona on lines S33, S4, S6 on the 'Llobregat - Anoia' line and get off at station 'Colònia Güell.'