The Castell Gala Dalí at Púbol is unlike any other castle in Catalonia. A genuine medieval fortification — with origins in the 11th century and a Gothic hall dating from the 14th — it became in 1969 the most extraordinary personal gift in the history of Surrealism, when Salvador Dalí purchased and meticulously redesigned it as a private residence for his wife and lifelong muse, Gala.
Dalí’s only condition was that he himself could not visit without Gala’s written permission. He decorated every room in obsessive, fantastical detail: ceilings painted with trompe-l’œil skies, Wagner-themed furnishings (Gala was devoted to the composer), Dalí-designed furniture that could have come from a fever dream, and the gardens populated with his signature large sculptures of rhinoceroses and elephants with spindly legs. The swimming pool bears classical statues draped with surreal objects; the bedroom is a shrine to Gala’s taste rather than her husband’s.
Gala lived here largely alone from 1971, receiving Dalí on approved visits, and died here in 1982. Dalí had her buried in the castle crypt, where she remains. Devastated by her death, Dalí himself retired to the castle briefly before being moved to Figueres, where he died in 1989.
Together with the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres and the Dalí house at Cap de Creus, Púbol forms the Dalí Triangle — three sites that together constitute the world’s largest Surrealist work of art. The castle’s intimate scale and deeply personal character make it the most quietly affecting of the three.