ALL I NEED IS MY PASSPORT

October 2021

Casa Vicens

Casa Vicens was designed as a summer home, so looking at the airflow, windows, and screens is a part of understanding the design. In 1883, Manel Vicens i Montaner, a stock and currency broker hired Gaudi to design this summer garden home in what was, at the time, the former village of Gràcia. This is considered Gaudi’s first masterpiece.

Vicens died in the house in 1895. Over the years it was enlarged and divided into four apartments. In 2014, MoraBanc, a private bank bought the property and restored it to its present state and converted it into a museum and exhibition space.

Only a few rooms are restored to their original, from there, they did a wonderful job of creating what the space would have looked like, but painted all of the surfaces white to differentiate the new from the original.

The house now sits in a very developed area with extremely narrow streets, so getting an overall photo of the house is difficult to say the least.

Most museums now find it convenient to point you to a downloadable audio, or even hand you a headset with all the information available.  In all of the Gaudi homes, there is a QR code and you can download the audio guide to your phone.  This means everyone is walking around with their phone to their ear (sans ear buds), or at full volume so the whole family can hear,  making it impossible to actually concentrate, especially when there are six different languages occurring.  I skipped the opportunity in every case, and spoke to the docents instead.  My experience was far richer for it.

This is the first room you enter in Casa Vicens.  My mouth dropped to the floor, I gasped and couldn’t move from my spot.  Fortunately a divine docent, fluent in five languages, was there to get me moving again.  The first question I asked was about the craftspeople of the house.  Gaudi was an amazing architect, and often did not work with drawings but concepts that he was specific about, but left to craftspeople to articulate.

The sad thing is that during the Catalan revolution Gaudi’s drawings and notes were completely destroyed, so in most Gaudi sites my questions about the craftspeople go unanswered.  Fortunately the drawings and information for Casa Vicens, were in the house itself, and so there is actually information about the craftspeople.

What you are looking at is a form of papier-mâché created by Hermenegild Miralles. Together with Ramon de Montaner i Vila, he founded a large lithography and industrial binding company, introducing this form of what they called, imitation papier-mâché.

From here I am simply going to share with you the things that brought tears to my eyes for their beauty.  Understanding the rooms in Casa Vicens is not important, the craftsmanship it.

Thought to be the daughters bedroom

The Master Bedroom

The ceiling of the woman’s siting room

The walls of the “Blue Room”

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The Smoking room

The exterior patio. Notice the screens that allow air to flow catching whatever breezes there were to cool the house in the summer.

Planters built into the exterior walls to be enjoyed while sitting on the patio

Typical of Gaudi, he could not just have a stone exterior, it had to be ornamented with tile

And yes, the rooftop chimneys were a part of the ahh moments

I was especially charmed by the front entry wrought iron fence.

The docent pointed out that Gaudi saw a palm leaf, thought it would make a perfect gate so had the artist, Joan Oñós, make a mold.  Since that is actually something that still occurs today, I enjoyed the step through time.

A cast of a single palm leaf in the house museum

Some of Gaudi’s papers are displayed in the house museum, it was fun to see his signature.

Paseo de Gracia

Photographing street tiles, unless freshly laid, is not easy.  It is hard to find where the world has not added such detritus as to make them rather unappealing.  These were designed by Gaudi.

In 1997 the city of Barcelona paved the broad pedestrian zones along Paseo de Gracia with a re-edition adapted to outdoor spaces as a tribute to Gaudi.

Portal Miralles

In 1901 Industrialist Hermenegild Miralles purchased a plot of land in the Sarriá neighborhood of Barcelona, to build a new home.  He hired Gaudí to design and build the perimeter wall. The house is long gone, but the entry gate remains.

The  three-dimensional cross at the top of the arch is one of Gaudi’s trademark motifs and can be seen decorating several of his buildings.

The gate was last restored in 2000 and at that time a life-sized bronze statue of Gaudí by Joaquim Camps was added.

Street Lights

While in school, Gaudí worked with Josep Fontserè i Mestre as a draughtsman for the entrance gate to the Ciutadella Park. Upon finishing this project, the Barcelona City Council commissioned him to design the public lighting of two of the city’s squares: Placa Reial and Pla de Palau.  These 6 arm lamps are in Placa Reial.

The  lampposts show the Barcelona coat of arms in the middle of the column. On the top of the lampposts in the Placa Reial is Caduceus with two snakes and a winged helmet, symbolizing Mercury, the Roman god of commerce.

In Pla de Palau the same Gaudi street lights can be found but with three arms that are not as ornately decorated. At the top of these lampposts is an inverted crown, supported by three dragons.

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Palau Güell

Palau Güell was one of Gaudi’s first works, and was for his patron Eusebi Güell. Construction began on the house in 1886 with the opening during the 1888 World Exhibition. Originally to be a multipurpose building with apartments, and event spaces it was not easy to place all of that into the small footprint of the lot.

Everything you read about this structure waxes poetic about its brilliance.  I found it almost macabre.  I can not, again, rave enough about the quality of the craftsmen, but I kept looking for the chained up fire breathing dragon in the basement.

The foremost feature on the front of the house is this wonderful sculpture of ironwork. The exterior of the house is all limestone from nearby Garraf

This magnificent entryway, meant for horse drawn carriages adds to the overall medieval feel I got

This entry hall is crowned by a parabolic dome, which lights the whole space through a series of small openings and a large central oculus. The entire building is configured around this central hall. The purpose of much of this room was not just to wow you with its aesthetics, the design guaranteed impressive acoustics for the concerts and religious services held here so they could be heard throughout the home.

Like so much of Gaudi’s work, you don’t need to really understand the purpose of the rooms as to simply ogle at the craftsmanship.

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When I was visiting Casa Vicenza there was a collection of Gaudi’s personal books, my eyes fell upon a pattern book filled with Islamic tiles, I saw much of that throughout several of his works, but here it was truly obvious.

 

The back façade of the house is viewable from an exterior terrace: the lower part of this interesting structure is covered with blue-tinted azulejos (tin-glazed ceramic tiles) while the upper part has a balcony and a wooden pergola.

If there was a chained up dragon in the basement I never found him, but I did find Gaudi’s whimsey on the roof.

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I do not want to give the impression that I did not think this house was anything other than spectacular.  It is simply that so much of Gaudi’s work has a lightness to it, you can feel his smiling, his quick step, his bright and brilliant mind, here, the spark was replaced with a darkness I simply did not expect.

October 2021

What do you say about any Gaudi building in Barcelona?  They have been photographed, published, visited, and shown on TV, ad nauseam.  But what would be posts about Barcelona without Gaudi.  Let us begin with his two most well known projects.

La Sagrada Familia – Basilica of the Holy Family

To begin with, it is truly impossible to capture the entire Basilica in one photograph.  If you get far enough back, you are in a lovely park, and the trees block your view.

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There is so much occurring on the front of the Basilica, which is called the Nativity Facade, that it would take a lifetime to absorb.

Construction of the Sagrada Família began under architect Francisco de Paula del Villar in 1882.  A year later Villar quit and Gaudí took over as chief architect, transforming the project with his own architectural and engineering style, combining Gothic and Art Nouveau forms.

Construction has been going on for 136 years. When still alive and asked why the building was taking so long, Gaudi replied, “My client isn’t in a hurry.” When La Sagrada Familia is completed, it will have taken longer to build than the Pyramids, and only 50 years less than the Great Wall of China.  It is expected to be completed in 2026, the centennial of Gaudi’s death.

The city of Barcelona is filled with buildings by Gaudi, but by the end of his life, when he was working on nothing but the Sagrada Familia, he was dressing in rags instead of buying new clothes, so that all his income could go the project, which was being funded entirely by donations.  Gaudi died in 1926 and is buried in the crypt underneath the main floor of the Basilica.

His death, was in part due to his wearing rags. He was struck by a tram on one of his daily walks and didn’t receive much medical attention because it was thought he was a vagrant. The next day the chaplain of the Sagrada Família identified him as Gaudi, but by then his injuries had progressed too far and he  passed away three days later.

At the Paris Exhibition of 1910, crowds formed long lines to view the plaster model of the building in progress, which then included stone cherubim with wind-propelled wings that would ring bells.

The interior pillars start square as the base, become octagonal, then circular, before transforming into tree-like limbs interlaced at ceiling height, to emphasis that nature is elevated over the handiwork of man.

The existing completed towers each bear words that together spell out a Latin prayer. When told that no one could read the script, Gaudi replied, “The angels can.” When La Sagrada Familia is completed, it will have 18 towers. 12 of the towers will represent the apostles, four of them will represent the evangelists, one will be designated for the Virgin Mary, and the last one, the highest one in the middle, will represent Jesus Christ.

The rear of the Basilica’s facade is called the Passion Facade. The steeples of this portion were completed in 1976, and in 1987 a team of sculptors, headed by Josep Maria Subirachs, began work sculpting the various scenes and details of the façade.  Gaudí intended for this façade to strike fear into the onlooker. He wanted to “break” arcs and “cut” columns, and to use the effect of chiaroscuro to show the severity and brutality of Christ’s sacrifice.

The cathedral has its critics and its fans: George Orwell called it hideous and Pablo Picasso said it was a monstrosity, but Salvador Dali declared it “as sensual as a woman’s skin.”

During the Spanish Civil War Catalan anarchists knew better than to destroy the building, so they destroyed all the renderings and models to make it impossible to finish.

In the 1980s computer scientists took scraps of remaining plans, handwritten notes by Gaudi, and photos of the existing construction to determine what the rest was intended to look like, thus speeding up construction.

Inside the towers, Gaudi designed a set of tubular bells comprising a carillon covering seven full octaves, which is every note on a piano.

There are several doors at the rear, I was fascinated by the rubbing of the key and the shell on this particular one, that have made them shiny.

The gospel doors on the rear contain text from the New Testament depicting the Passion of Christ. 8,000 bronze characters were used to cast the door.

Fruit atop the towers represent Gaudi’s love of nature and his desire to incorporate nature throughout. The various fruits represent the different seasons.

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Gaudi took a very different tack with the use of stained glass in La Sagrada Familia.  Gaudí sought out maximum contrast. The most transparent stained-glass windows are those highest up, (in contrast to most churches where they are lower to the congregation) so that the light can stream in and illuminate the mosaics and vaults that characterize the nave.
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Antoni Gaudi by Josep M. Subirachs

The advantage of visiting during Covid is that the crowds, while still large, were not as overwhelming as one might expect.  However, both the crypt and all of the towers were closed to visitors.  Return trips are warranted, and needed, when trying to wrap ones head around a project this massive and complex.

If there is anything you want to know about La Sagrada Familia, their website is second to none.

Parc Güell

Eusebi Güell hired Gaudi to develop an estate in the the  Muntanya Pelada (bare mountain) just outside of Barcelona. Originally, there were to be some 60 triangular-shaped lots on the estate, with a complex network of paths, viaducts and steps to help negotiate the steep terrain. The building conditions were also restrictive.  Only one-sixth of the lot could be built on and the height and placement of the houses were not to block the neighboring properties view of the sea or access to sunlight.  Güell wanted to recreate the British residential parks, which is why he named it Park Güell, in English.

The main entrance is flanked by two whimsical Gaudi buildings. Today they function as ticket sales, store and miscellaneous services for the park.

A window of one of the entry way buildings

Primarily due to a lack of interested buyers the project was abandoned in 1914, with only two houses having been built. The park became a large private garden, which Güell allowed to be used for public events.

Once you enter you are greeted by the main staircase. Here you will find three fountains representing Catalonia.  There is a circle that symbolizes the world, a snake whose symbolism is in question and the third which is a colorful salamander.

The stairway ends in a space called the  Hipóstila Chamber or Chamber of the Hundred Columns. This large open plaza was built between 1907 and 1909 to be a market hall.

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Looking up at the ceiling of the hipostilla

Walking up the stairs you arrive at the most photographed area of all of Parc Guell. The plaza, designed as a Greek theater, and surrounded on 3 sides by a serpentine tiled bench.

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Tiles inlaid in the walls as you walk up to the plaza

To me, some of the more interesting objects throughout the property were the viaducts. Gaudí designed the viaducts to be the connection between different plots of the “City”.

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The retaining wall that supports the path that traverses the entire park takes the form of a portico with the profile of a wave. It is popularly known as the Portic de la Bugadera (Portico of the Washerwoman) because of this one column.

Eusebi Güell died in his home on the property, in 1918, and his heirs offered the park to the City Council, which agreed to purchase it in 1922.

The park was recognized as an artistic monument in 1969 and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984.

There is so much more to both of these sites, but it is hard to believe that, even if you have never been to either of them, you know so much about them.