Mallorca Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

About Mallorca Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Mallorca Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Mallorca has drawn artists for more than a century, and some of the greatest stayed. Joan Miró spent the last decades of his life above the Bay of Palma; Robert Graves wrote in Deià; and in Palma, Antoni Gaudí and Miquel Barceló both left their mark on the cathedral. Today the island's capital has a contemporary museum in its old walls and a night each September when the whole city goes to the galleries. Here is the back story, and where to see it.

La Seu: Gothic, Gaudí and Barceló

Palma's cathedral, La Seu, rises over the Parc de la Mar and the old sea wall. Its main rose window, 11 metres across and made of more than a thousand pieces of glass, is in Visit Palma's words the largest rose window in the Gothic world.

Antoni Gaudí opened up large windows and moved the choir and altarpieces to fill the cathedral with light; look up for the baldachin by Gaudí and Josep Maria Jujol, with its 33 hanging lights. Look too for Miquel Barceló's 12-metre ceramic mural, so that in one building you see Gothic, Modernisme and contemporary art side by side.

Miró came to Mallorca for its light, and its light is still the island's great artist.

Beside La Seu, the Royal Palace of La Almudaina, one of Spain's royal sites managed by Patrimonio Nacional, has a vaulted Tinell hall hung with tapestries.

Palma's palaces and museums

Behind the cathedral, Palma's old town is a quarter of noble houses with courtyards behind great doors. On Carrer de Sant Miquel, the Museu Fundación Juan March fills a 17th-century townhouse, bought by the March family in 1916, with a collection of 20th-century Spanish art; its current exhibitions include Saul Steinberg, artista, from 6 October 2026 to 23 January 2027.

For the view, walk the plane-tree avenue of the Passeig del Born and up through Plaça Major, or climb to the Castell de Bellver in the woods above the city. Its round courtyard is ringed by two storeys of arches, and it looks out over the whole bay.

Es Baluard

At the west end of the sea walls, Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani de Palma sits on the perimeter of the Sant Pere bastion, part of the city's Renaissance walls. The city ceded the land in 1997, and the museum was inaugurated on 30 January 2004. Its collection of more than 900 works runs from the late 19th century to today, and its terraces on the old walls look across the bay; exhibitions and hours are on its own website.

Miró in Mallorca

In 1956, aged 63, Joan Miró settled for good at Cala Major, above the bay, in the studio of his dreams, designed by his friend the architect Josep Lluís Sert, with its curved white roofs. In 1959 he bought Son Boter, an 18th-century house nearby, with the Guggenheim International Award, and made it his second studio; its walls still carry his charcoal sketches, a collection of 57 original drawings.

On 7 March 1981 Miró and his wife Pilar Juncosa gave the studios to the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca. After his death, Pilar donated the land and 42 works, sold at auction to fund a new building, and the foundation's headquarters by Rafael Moneo opened in 1992. Today you can see the galleries, the Sert studio and, when it reopens after restoration works, Son Boter.

The Tramuntana: Deià, Valldemossa and Sóller

The Serra de Tramuntana, the mountain range of the north-west coast, is a UNESCO-listed landscape, and its stone villages have their own artistic history. In Deià, on a hillside above its cove, the poet and novelist Robert Graves made his home at Ca n'Alluny, on the road to Sóller; the Fundació Robert Graves keeps his study, his books and his printing press much as he left them.

Valldemossa's lanes climb between stone houses and potted plants to the Real Cartuja, its Carthusian monastery; come early or late in the day, when the coaches have gone. In Sóller, Can Prunera on Carrer de sa Lluna is a Modernista town house with its original interiors and a collection of modern art, a reminder that the island's Modernisme reached well beyond Palma.

Music and the stage

The Teatre Principal de Palma, on Carrer de la Riera, stages opera, dance, theatre and concerts, including the Orquestra Simfònica de les Illes Balears. On the seafront Passeig Marítim, the Auditòrium de Palma has presented concerts and shows since 1969.

Planning your visit

Palma's cultural sights sit close together: La Seu, the Almudaina, the Juan March museum and Es Baluard are all within an easy walk of one another in and around the old town, so you can see them in a day on foot. The Miró foundation is at Cala Major, on the west side of the bay, and the hills of Son Vida and Bellver rise just behind the city. Deià, Valldemossa and Sóller lie in the Tramuntana to the north, and each makes a day of its own; combine Valldemossa with Deià, and Sóller with its Modernista town houses and the coast below.

Cultural calendar

Nit de l'Art: Palma's night of the galleries celebrated its 30th edition on 19 September 2026, from 6pm to 11pm around Plaça de l'Olivar; the next edition will appear on visitpalma.com.

Museu Fundación Juan March: Saul Steinberg, artista, from 6 October 2026 to 23 January 2027 (march.es/palma).

Teatre Principal and the Orquestra Simfònica de les Illes Balears: the current seasons are on teatreprincipal.com and simfonicadebalears.com.

What's new

The Fundació Miró Mallorca has begun restoration works at Son Boter, Miró's second studio, which is temporarily closed to the public. Checked October 2026 on miromallorca.com.

The Nit de l'Art marked its 30th anniversary in September 2026. Checked October 2026 on visitpalma.com.

Our advice: start early at La Seu for the morning light through the rose window, lunch in the old town, spend the afternoon at Es Baluard, and give a separate day to the Miró foundation and the Tramuntana villages.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Mallorca Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story before you go.