Day 10: (Barcelona) Gaudi Man
Today we finally got to check out some of Barcelona’s infamous architecture – it seems like a sin that we’ve been here almost a week and haven’t seen any yet! For those of you who don’t know, Antoni Gaudí was a famous architect who designed a lot of buildings, parks, and homes in the Barcelona area using a modernism style. His style, however, is absolutely bonkers and is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Whimsical, zany, beautiful and intricate; all of the works we’ve seen carry a very distinctive style of Gaudí, but no two places are even close to alike. I’m getting a little ahead of myself since I’m writing this late and have since seen some more of Gaudí’s work, but today we got to tour la Sagrada Família and see two of his homes – Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, which was also called La Pedrera because people thought it just looked like a big slab of stone from a quarry.
I’ll tell you more about the architecture, some notes I took on them, and my reaction in a little bit. But first, let’s continue the trend of chronologically walking through my day. First things first – my ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast… I really do think I would be happy eating this for breakfast for the rest of my life. I do miss French Toast, but the Spanish told me that they eat that for dessert at Christmas, so I wouldn’t miss out on it completely! After breakfast, we had a classroom session where everyone chose two pictures that they had taken thus far on the trip and explained a similarity in theme or any juxtaposition that they showcased. I chose these two pictures below: The first taken in Madrid and the second taken in Barcelona.
I’ve always been extremely observant, and I love looking for minor details in major things – like a crack in the road or a small plant growing from a large tree. As such, I think a lot of my photos display that. I chose these two images because they showcase the underlying culture in each part of Spain. In the top photo, taken in Madrid, you can see that everything is straight, somewhat rigid and manicured to perfection. Although it’s an apartment complex, each and every window looks pretty much the same giving a sense of uniformity and cohesion.
The second photo, taken in Barcelona displayed almost the exact opposite. You can see that all the apartments looks pretty much the same structure wise, but everyone has decorated and lived in their outside differently. We see palm trees, towels, the Catalonian flags, different blinds, a variety of colors, plants, and people. It looks a lot more diverse and eclectic than the starkness of Madrid.
I think these photos kind of encapsulate what you’ll see in both areas of Spain. I loved Madrid. It’s beautiful, open, full of greenery, and very patriotic. When you’re in Madrid, you’ll see the Spanish flag everywhere, you’ll have room in the streets and sidewalks to walk and dance if you wanted, and the architecture is very Romanesque in its style. While Barcelona continues to have some green space and is beautiful in its own way, it is extremely different than Madrid. First off, Barcelona is much narrower and older than Madrid. Barcelona used to be a walled city, so there is a part of Barcelona called “Old Town” (which is huge) where there is very old gothic architecture and narrow pathways, streets and alleys paved in cobblestone lined with shops of local artists and artisans. It’s very cool and a much different vibe than Madrid – much younger and more energetic.
Secondly, (and probably most importantly) Barcelona is located in Catalonia, which is in the process of fighting to gain their independence from Spain (and has been for a very very long time). I won’t get too far into it, because it is of course a huge political debate, but here’s what I know: Most of the people in the subsection of Spain called Catalonia (Catalunya) want independence from Spain. Catalonia makes a lot of money and the rest of Spain is doing extremely poorly in their economy. So, when Catalonia sends the Spanish government their money and the government combines it and then splits it up and disperses it across Spain, Catalonia isn’t getting nearly as much money back, making it feel like Spain is sucking their money from them. So, a lot of people in Catalonia are savvy to this and are like “hey, that’s not fair! This is dumb! We worked hard for this!” so they want independence from the rest of Spain or at least autonomy and the right to vote. Right now, Spain is unified, so they won’t let Catalonia vote independently for their independence. Think of if one of the 50 states, like Texas for example, wanted their independence from the U.S. (oh wait…). So, it’s messy and is a huge debate and is felt very passionately throughout Catalonia. So, there isn’t much Spanish patriotism in Catalonia. They only Spanish flags you’ll see are on government buildings and you’ll mostly see the Catalonian flag (red and yellow stripes) or the Catalonian flag for independence (red and yellow stripes with blue triangle with a white star inside it).
Enough of the politics and history lesson, but it was really interesting to see the differences between Madrid and Barcelona/ Spain and Catalonia – the Catalan people really try to separate themselves from the rest of Spain and you can see that in everyday things, such as the two apartment buildings from above. I really just went into a very small recap of Catalonia independence and the differences between Madrid and Barcelona because it would just be too long and complicated to go into, so I encourage you to do some research on your own and to visit these two cities to experience the difference for yourselves!
So after our free time where I contemplated and reflected on all this information, we got on the Metro and went to la Sagrada Família, arguably Gaudí’s most impressive work and one of the most famous basilica’s in the entire world. The first stone was laid in 1882 and has remained under construction since (except for a few years during the Spanish Civil War) and is hoped to be completed in the year 2026, which I personally don’t think is going to happen due to its intricacies and how much they have yet to finish. I’ve studied and learned about this masterpiece in a lot of my Spanish classes, primarily in high school where my teacher, Señora Lentz, understood the importance of Gaudí’s work; but none of my studies could have prepared me for the allure and artistry of this space.
When you walk up to it, you’re immediately taken aback. Literally, like you start walking backwards because it’s so huge and won’t fit in your line of sight. Then, at least for me, you start scanning the entire exterior of the building, not knowing what to look at first. Here’s kind of my first reaction:
Do I look at the sculptures? Do I look at the incredible detail of the texture of this building? Is that color? On a historic building?! Are those gumdrops on top or a cool mosaic? Jesus, how long did this take? Omg that door is huge. Are those Star Wars forts? No, George Lucas was after Gaudí.. Okay wow, this is incredible. How did humans do this? How did one human even think of this?! This is ridiculous. Those towers are crazy… Am I going up there? They kinda look like corn. I want corn on the cob. Dear God. Is that a bridge behind that tree?! People are walking up there! Okay, wow. Seriously wow, this is so incredible – I guess I should take some pictures? But I just wanna look at it… okay, well other people need to at least see?
So then went my picture taking spree of trying to capture the detail and complexity of the work. Here are a few, but they hardly due the structure justice:
Then, we got our audio tour headsets (which I highly recommend if you ever go!) and proceeded to go inside. We were told we had to rush at first since we had tickets to go up into the towers at 2:15 and it was 2:00pm by the time we made it in and you can’t be late! So we walked in and I’m going to try my best to explain it, but it’s really something you have to experience for yourself. The enormity and the light in the space just hits you, hard, as soon as you walk in the doors. The building is filled with colored stained glass windows which emit a sheath of colored light throughout the space. The ceilings are held up by huge pillars shaped as trees, with their branches reaching high into the ceiling of the church, holding up an array of vaults and crevices that give the illusion of a canopy in a forest. The space is wide open, with lots of little staircases, balconies, and hidden doors. It’s honestly breathtaking.
We quickly went to the line where we waited to go up into the tower on the Passion façade, which is the “back side” of where you walk in. (Side note: the actual front of la Sagrada Família hasn’t been built yet, so the Nativity façade is where the entrance is now, making the Passion façade the “back” but once construction has finished, these two façades will be the sides of the basilica.) We went in a small elevator that took us up 60m where we were let off and led to walk up a few spiraled set of stairs. I suggest that you take a Dramamine before going up to these towers. It’s beautiful but also very overwhelming through its height, how narrow it is and how the staircase resembles the innards of a conch shell, spiraling downwards into nothing. I don’t mean to freak you out, but it definitely freaked me out, but it was still very cool. I stood on a small bridge and overlooked Barcelona and then tried taking the stairs all the way down the tower and a quarter of the way through decided it was a bad idea so I went back up and took the elevator down. It didn’t help that when I was up there, the bells started chiming so it felt like the whole tower was shaking.
Once tney made their way down to the bottom of the tower and back into the main floor of the church, we started the audio tour. I’m not a huge tour of audio tours to begin with, but this tour was relatively short and took us around the different sections of the church, explaining the background and meaning behind each one. I really really enjoyed the tour – when you walk into la Sagrada Família, all your brain can think is ‘how did he do this?!’ so getting the short blips of information was enlightening and interesting.
Through this tour I learned a lot of things, a few of which I’ll share with you now:
The first stone of la Sagrada Família was laid in 1882, but it wasn’t until 1883 when the project was turned over to Antoni Gaudí and he began redesigning and creating the masterpiece we see today. Gaudí worked on la Sagrada Família between 1883 and 1926, until his death after getting run over by a street car in 1926. Of the 43 years he worked on this piece, he fully devoted himself to la Sagrada Família during the last 12 years of his life, working on nothing else and living in his workspace in the basement of the church. Gaudí knew that he would not live to see his masterpiece finished, so instead of working on the project horizontally, stone by stone, they worked on the project vertically, creating the a magnificent sight of the first four towers which prompted people to come see and inquire about what they were working on. Through working on this project vertically, Gaudí was able to see one tower completed before his death in 1926.
Gaudí was incredibly inspired by Mother Nature, which is apparent throughout his works, especially in la Sagrada Família. The inside of the church resembles a forest – the huge pillars made to look like giant trees and the ceiling made to look like a canopy. On the Nativity Façade, which I mentioned before is the present entrance of the church, there is a large Cyprus tree which is green in color and adorned with doves while also depicting the birth of Jesus. This Cyprus tree represents eternity and the doves represent peace – using nature to emit a desire for eternal peace within the building’s walls. The present backside, the Passion Façade, looks very different from the Nativity Façade. The Passion Façade is very bare, white, and has clean lines. This was done on purpose as its bone-like appearance is supposed to represent Jesus’ death.
When you go to the church, the Nativity Façade works fine as an entrance, but the real entrance has still yet to be built. Right now, there are apartment buildings and shops directly across the street from the church, which prove it to be difficult to enter such a massive building. Gaudí and the shop owners across the street knew this, and though the buildings were built after the construction of la Sagrada Família they owners knew that they would be torn down in order to finish the construction of the church. So, when la Sagrada Família is close to being finished, the city will tear down all the buildings on that side and build a huge park, which was in Gaudí’s original design and then finish the main entrance.
After the tour, we only had a half hour to look around, so I had next to no time to explore the museum in the basement of the church which housed some of Gaudí’s original sketches and had exhibits explaining how some parts of the church were created. If you go, definitely spend some time down there!
After Sagrada Família, we had a short amount of free time before we went on a city-run Modernism tour. Do not do this, I repeat, DO NOT DO THIS. It was a really long walking tour and it was terrible. The guide never stopped talking so there was no time for questions and when we did interrupt to ask a question, the guide didn’t know anything except for what was on her script. It wasn’t engaging, it was barely interesting and it was a waste of time. If you’d like to do a Modernism tour in Barcelona (the Modernist architecture is really cool) definitely get a private guide so you get a better connection and you can actually get answers to your questions.
Crabby after the tour, I went with my friend Victor to go get tacos only to find that the place was closed. So, we walked back down to the main street and ate a pork burger at a place called Pura Brasa. It was so good, and we felt kinda fancy. After dinner we walked back to the hostal and got ready for bed soon after since tomorrow is an early start.