It's rained every day since early December and Bruce and I
were both fed up. So I booked a cheap flight to Barcelona, hoping for a week of
sunshine. Which we got…along with some good food, a local festival, a couple of
parades and lots of crazy architecture by Antoni Gaudi.
Now for those who don’t know, Gaudi is the patron saint of
Barcelona architecture. He began
his career designing mansions for the captains of industry. But by the time he
died in 1926, (hit by a tram, he was so dirty and shabbily dressed that they
didn’t recognize him at the local hospital and refused to treat him.) he had
become so pious that he’s actually being considered for real sainthood. But I didn’t have the courage to warn
Bruce about Gaudi, because I knew he’d hate the man’s architecture, and I
really wanted to get out of the rain.
To be fair, Gaudi isn’t for the faint hearted. When he finished architecture school, the dean noted wryly that they had just graduated
either a madman or a genius. Everything about his work, and that of his Moderniste
contemporaries, is OVER THE TOP. Walls
are curved; columns are contorted; ceilings ripple and swirl; simple exhaust vents look like exotic warriors. To top it off, every surface is covered with
ceramic tile and dripping with ornament.
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| View from Park Guell |
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| Detail of Gaudi's benches at Park Guell |
