Spain, Part Seven

Barcelona is a feast for architecture buffs, especially turn-of-the-nineteenth-century architecture buffs. Antoni Gaudi is the key name, introducing all sorts of great ideas into the architectural dialogue, including the study and incorporation of organic shapes and designs. Some of his stuff is downright spooky, some of it is silly, all of it is fascinating.

There’s a great walk that begins a little out of the old part of town. You take a subway a couple of stops to Hospital St Pau, designed by Lluis Domenech i Montaner (everybody in Spain has a lot of names). Domenech was rather revolutionary, believing that bright and pleasant surroundings would make for a healthy environment as compared to the current breed of hospital (read Foucault if you want to really get a sense of old medicine). And that’s exactly what you get with St Pau, early Modernism (as its referred to in Spain; Secession in Vienna, good old Art Nouveau most other places), incorporating lots of natural motifs in the designs. If you must be in a hospital, you’d want to be in this one.

Then you walk down to Sagrada Familia, which is the Gaudi-designed cathedral, probably one of the most famous buildings in the world. Now, Gaudi started building this in the 19th Century, so I expected that, even though it’s not yet finished, it would be sort of finished. No way. What is completed is the first phase of the exterior; there are plenty more spires to go up. As for the interior, well, they’re working on it. Which means that when you go to it, you are seeing a classic cathedral very much under construction, the kind of cathedral you thought was a thing of the past, taking multiple generations to build, a construction of such magnitude and complexity that it may not be completed in your lifetime. Yes, you. If you’re in high school now, you’ll probably be around for the first mass (predicted now for the late 2020s), but you’d better get some seriously clean living habits if you want to see all the final exterior put together. Nevertheless, there’s plenty to see now. The exterior is literally encrusted with more artwork than you can absorb. There’s storytelling sculptures, symbolic sculptures, multiple sculptors in multiple styles—chiefly the Passion to the rear behind the altar (presumably the East, if it’s a traditional cathedral) and early years above the main doors on the other side (you know, it may have not been on the traditional east-west axis, which allows the most light through the windows). I’ll post some pictures. Seeing Sagrada Familia (which includes a large informational display in the basement) is an amazing experience. It alone is worth the trip to Barcelona.

From here you stroll back to the main part of the city on what is called the Modernism walk, because it’s a part of the city that has an abundance of these wonderful Nouveau buildings, mostly apartment houses or, originally, one-family houses. Among these are a couple of Gaudis, one of which we went into. The incorporation of shapes and structures from the natural world at times makes the building seem like a living thing, like that spaceship from Farscape. There are still people living in the building, but one apartment is open for a walkthrough, so you get a nice feel for upper middle class living back in the day. The high point of the building (no pun intended) is the roof. If you’re going to have vents, why shouldn’t they be fun? Again, I’ve posted pictures to Facebook.

So there’s one whole day in Barcelona devoted just to Modernism, if you’re so inclined. We certainly were. We definitely walked our legs off in this city, which is what I love doing on vacation. But don’t worry. We did stop regularly enough for coffee, tapas, gelato, etc. The mind can’t function when the body is out of fuel.