The house, built in 1904, was fantastic, with an inner light well giving light to all the rooms, a ventilation system open to the outside, and adjustable louvers into all the rooms. Every surface inside was curved, giving the impression of being inside a fantastic ocean cavern. Gaudí attended to every detail of the house, from the font on the doors’ letters, to the ergonomic door handles, the furniture, the light fixtures, the fireplace nook, the windows, patios, tiles, etc. The moldings were curving wood as were the windows and other doors. The lightwell was tiled and the tiles changed color as it went up and got more light so that they would all look the same. The windows also changed size on the way up so that the windows lower down were larger and would receive the same amount of light as the windows farther up which were smaller. The attic had beautiful arches and let in outside air for ventilation and laundry. The roof was tiled and looked like the back of a dragon and had a window that lined up exactly with his signature building, the Sagrada Familia. The front of the building had columns that looked like bones with joints, patios that looked like masks, and interesting tiling that gave the impression of Monet’s water lilies. Gaudí seemed to be way ahead of his time in that much of the building was made with recycled materials, he was very inspired by nature, and he made it very energy efficient with the lighting and air flow.
We then walked down the street to visit the Perdrera, an apartment complex designed by Gaudí. In the bottom floor there was a free exhibit of Fortuny, the famous fashion designer, who was also an inventor, print maker, set designer, and artist.
We took the subway to Sagrada Família, the giant cathedral that Gaudí is famous for. It turns out it was started in 1882 and he took it over a year later, redesigning it and he then spent 30+ years working on it. It is still under construction today, estimated to be completed in 2026, following his original plans, some of which had burned in a fire during the Spanish Civil War, but were reconstructed from the scale models he always built before starting a project. We could walk inside even though it is mostly blocked off for construction. You feel like you are in the forest or an ocean: the stained glass is very green and blue giving interesting lighting and the columns are twisted and curved upward like tree trunks or (to me) a kelp forest with giant leaves at the top. Very inspiring. Once again, he paid attention to every detail, designing the benches, acoustically superior confessional booths, the stained glass patterns, etc. There is a workshop of artisans, since every column and detail has to be specially made, because nothing is in a standard shape. He had an ingenous system for figuring out how the forces would play out on the columns by building the model upside down with hanging pieces and seeing where gravity pulled it. There was another exhibit about how he was influenced by shapes from nature and mathematics. For instance the cross design at the top is like a pine cone, the columns were made by intersecting various geometric shapes, the curvy roofs were made with straight lines following curves to come up with fantastical curves and DNA type structures.
Finally we took the subway to visit his public park, Park Güell, which was originally part of a giant estate with other buildings. The park is gigantic but the main area includes a giant seating plaza with tiled curvy benches where you can overlook the city, a covered market area with the curvy columns, the guard houses, a fancy staircase with a tiled lizard. There were people everywhere relaxing, street musicians, people selling things, and tourists.
Next we took the subway across town to the Picasso Museum, which was free on Sundays. Picasso lived in Barcelona for large parts of his life. The museum didn’t include so many of his modern works, but had sketches and the older paintings from different periods, such as Blue and Rose. It also had a roomful of variations Picasso did on Las Meninas, the famous painting by Velásquez that Libby and Camille had studied in Madrid. His versions were very abstract and interesting.
Finally we went back to La Ramble, had tapas and watched the street scene and then watched part of the World Cup game.
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