Anton Gaudí and a Glance at Modernisme, Part l

A trip to Barcelona would not be complete without seeing some of Anton Gaudí’s work. It’s actually hard to miss his work if your eyes are open. We took the opportunity to take a guided tour of his magnificent, fantastical and imaginative work. An enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable tour guide shepherded our group around Barcelona to learn all things Gaudi. We made stops at Casa Batlló (aka House of Bones), Casa Milà (aka La Pedrera), Park Güell, Casa Vicens and finally Sagrada Familia.

Folllowing is but a glimpse of three of the stops, Casa Batlló, Casa Milà and Casa Vicens. Unfortunately, we could only tour the interior of Casa Batllo on this trip, but had the pleasure of learning a bit about about Casa Milà and Casa Vicens, stopping to see the outside of his creative works.

We were able to tour Casa Batlló (pictured above) inside and out all the way to the life like roof where we found its serpent-like spine, chimneys and turrets.

Gaudí was an architect, artist, inventor and most would agree genius in Barcelona who evolved his style during his career to what became known as Modernisme, a unique form of Modernism found in Catalonia. Most of Gaudi’s work is luckily found in Barcelona so is easy to see if you have limited time when visiting.

Two other significant architects that contributed to this movement included Lluís Domènech (in a later post one of his famous works, Palau de la Musica Catalana will be featured) and Josep Puig i Cadafalch. Luckily we only had to look left of Casa Batllò to find Casa Amatller which was built by Cadafalch. It is pictured below, if you look to the right of the building you can see one of the famous turrets of Casa Batllò.

Encompassing more than architecture, Mordernisme, also know as Catalan Modernism and Catalan Art Nouveau, included other art forms like writing, painting and sculpting.

Scholars have studied and books have been written about Gaudi, the Modernisme movement and the buildings Gaudi designed and built. Information is easy to find and I encourage you to do a search or two and discover for yourself more about this genius as well as the other artists whom were a part of this incredible movement.

Casa Batlló was the first stop for the day. Once we entered the building on the principal floor (what Americans call the first floor), a beautiful twisting staircase took us up to the first floor to the main salon or living room.

Throughout the Casa it is difficult to find a straight line as can be seen here in the ceiling of the main salon.

The ceiling to floor windows not only allows the light in but permits the onlooker to have a full view of the the Passeig de Gràcia one of the main avenues in Barcelona. Only a few minutes away on the same street Casa Milà can be found.

Above and below is the stairwell in the center of Casa Batlló.

Tile was used throughout this building as well as his other work. Left is the back courtyard facing of Casa Batllo and below is a closer look. He was actually a pioneer when it came to recycling, very often reusing broken tiles that would have been normally discarded in order to create his mosaics.

Going down an arched hallway, we eventually made our way up to the roof, exiting through a side of the “dragon” found on the roof. The arches pictured here are called catenary arches and represent the rib cage of an animal perhaps even the dragon on the roof.

Pictured right is part of the “dragons” spine, which is hard to see from the ground. Below are the chimneys.

These four chimney stacks to the left are actually beside the dragon’s spine pictured above.

Here you can see the cross on top of the turret which some believe to be the representation of Saint George’s sword piercing downward into the dragon. Saint George is the patron Saint of Catalonia.

Throughout the building he used light, form and texture to accentuate one another. Gaudí did not build Casa Batllo from the ground up, but came in and redesigned it from the ground up for the Batllo family starting in 1904.

Walking down Passeig Gracia we saw another Gaudi creation. Casa Milà or La Padrera (translated as quarry in English) as the locals call it was Gaudi’s last civic architectural project. This is a definite stop during my next visit to Barcelona. Just from the pictures below, a glimpse of the master’s design can be seen. Imagination meets nature once again.

(Referred to as the warrior rooftop, there is a complete 360 degree view of Barcelona. Below you can see one of the many chimneys found on the roof as well as the the ironwork found on each of the 32 balconies of the building. Being the great recycler he was, Gaudi used scrap iron sheets, bars and chains for the ironwork. From here, we moved to Park Guell (to be featured later) then Casa Vicens.

Casa Vicens in contrast to La Pedrera (to the right and below), was Gaudi’s first architectural endeavor. Built over the course of two years it was completed in 1885.

The story hardly ends here but merely begins. More Gaudi and more details from Barcelona and beyond will follow, highlighting the overall grandeur and detail that is Europe which together make it beautifully interesting and fun to experience.