Gaudi's Barcelona

Today I returned to Barcelona and I was able to see a few of the sites that I missed before when I was here in January.  I started with the park that Gaudi built.

Originally intended to be a small village outside of Barcelona city center, his vision was not quite realized.

There are several foot bridges throughout the park with columns that were designed after the local palm trees. Like trees, no two columns are alike.

Surrounding what was meant to be the town square is a wall that also serves as a bench.  The designs are tiles that had been broken in previous projects.

The benches overlook one of the only structures to be built in the park.  It used to be the home of the groundskeeper and marks the pedestrian entrance to the park.

The square is actually raised off of the ground by 86 columns (below) that also collected rainwater from the square.  The original plan was to provide water for the residents.  Instead, it is used for the vegetation.  The mosaics were also made from recycling broken tiles.

I found a bit of shade with a view of the groundskeeper's cottage.

The raised square can be seen at the top from the base of a grand staircase.  The park still contains the only four structures built and the vegetation as added later to create a green park.

Antoni Gaudi is also the architect of the Sangrada Familia Basilica in the center of the city.  Construction began in 1882 and continues today with a goal of completing the church by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death.

Common in Gaudi's work was the attempts to mirror nature with curved lines and nature is present in the details including the fruit on the tops of the spires below.

While the exterior is extremely detailed in its telling of the story of the life of Jesus, the interior lacks sculptures and images of people and focuses on nature.  The columns are meant to look like palm trees and the ceiling like the sky with stars.

The stained glass windows are filled with geometric spaces with colors meant to remind those inside of the four seasons.

While Gaudi was still working on the church, he had a school built for the children of the workers building the church.  Below, it was preserved as part of Gaudi's collection of works.

Inside the school.