La Casa dels Entremesos

The Casa dels Entremesos stands in the Plaça de les Beates, in the old town, Ciutat Vella. It is a centre for the dissemination of Barcelona and Catalonia's popular culture and is currently home to the Federation of Popular and Traditional Cultures of Old Barcelona and the fifteen organisations it is made up of.

This cultural hub brings together, disseminates and promotes popular culture in its many guises: festive imagery, dance, music, fire festivals, human towers, blunderbuss bearers and folk art. The building also holds exhibitions, talks, panel discussions, workshops, book presentations, concerts. But its main attraction is its permanent exhibition of the figures and costumes that are central to Barcelona's festivals. They include fifty figures, including the giants, or gegants, giant heads, or capgrossos, and mythical beasts. The dragon that is a key component of Barcelona's festivals, the Dragon of Ciutat Vella, takes part in the fire processions, as a fire-breathing beast, and official events, as part of the city's retinue of characters and figures, known as the Seguici Popular de Barcelona. They have their own dance with the sounds of percussion and reed instruments.