Louvres, shutters and blinds: a short field guide

Every window in Barcelona has something in front of it or behind it to manage the sun. What it is tells you when the building went up, what its owners cared about and how the room will feel in August. Most homes have more than one kind, and the mix says a lot about who has lived there.

Louvres

A louvre is a set of blades, fixed or turning, usually timber or aluminium, mounted outside the glass. Fixed louvres are angled for one facade: steep enough to block the high summer sun, open enough to let the winter sun in beneath them. Turning louvres can be set by hand or by motor, so the same screen can close in August and open in December.

At Pujades 112 the louvres on the street side are oak, and each terrace has its own set. Louvres work best on south and west facades, where the sun is strong and its angle changes a lot through the day. On an east facade they do less, because the morning sun is low and comes in under almost anything. They need cleaning once a year, and timber ones need oiling every three or four.

A louvre also changes the face of a building. From the street, a facade with louvres looks closed at noon and open at dusk, which is part of why architects like them.

Shutters

In older Barcelona flats the shutters are timber, with fixed slats, folding in two or four leaves. Some hang outside the balcony doors, others inside the window, against the reveal. Closed, they let the air through and keep the sun out, and the light that gets in falls in thin bands across the floor. In the Eixample many original shutters have survived a century of use, because nothing proposed to replace them has worked as well.

If you buy a flat with original shutters, keep them. Strip, repair and repaint them, and replace the hinges if you must. A carpenter can usually restore a full set in two or three weeks, for less than the cost of new aluminium ones. The old brass catches and hinges are part of the value: they clean up well, and they are almost impossible to find new.

Blinds

Roller blinds and the fabric awnings on every 1970s block are the most common sun control in the city, and the least precise. An awning keeps the sun off a balcony but traps warm air under it. A roller blind outside the glass works well, but once it is down the room is dark. A blind inside the glass cuts the glare and does almost nothing for the heat, because the sun has already come through.

Blinds have their place in bedrooms that need to be fully dark. Elsewhere, we treat them as a last resort. In a renovation, an external roller blind can often be fitted into the old shutter box without changing the facade, which matters in protected buildings.

When we write about a home, we say what is on its windows and which way they face. The two together tell you more about a summer in that flat than any number on the energy certificate.