La Pedrera, Guell Park, Segrada Familia.

Today was wholly devoted to the work of Antoni Gaudi.

We followed a well defined route which touches several of Gaudi's astonishing designs. The Pedrera (which we mentioned in an earlier post) was commissioned by the Mila family for their private residence. It was also to include several floors for paying tenants, albeit rather wealthy ones. The design Gaudi came up with was an astonishing blend of natural and innovative structural engineering and organic functional design. It is built around not one but two central courtyards to bring light into the very core of the building. It had all the most modern amenities 1920 could provide, including telephones, hot water heaters and even completely ergonomic door handles well before ergonomics had even been invented. The furniture was also designed by Gaudi specifically to blend with the overall design concept. This too is a master class in form, materials and functional design.

Far and above the most outrageous design was reserved for the rooftop terrace. Boring old chimneys and vents got the full Gaudi treatment and became arcane creatures, warriors, shaped and eroded rocks, twisting and swirling blazes of fire, goodness knows what he was thinking.

If you can imagine Dr Seus on an acid trip you might get the general idea.

Park Guell was originated commissioned after old man Guell bought 15 acres of Barcelona's hillside. Gaudi was to design a housing estate for the well-to-do gentry of the city to occupy but as these things be it never happened. Only one residence was ever completed and Gaudi himself moved into it for several years before his death. That building is now a museum within the park complex. The Guell family ultimately willed the estate to the city who made it a public space.

If the intended dwellings didn't eventuate, at least all the landscaping features of the Gaudi design did. It's an explosion of colourfully mozaiced structures and meandering pathways of stimulating form which inspire wonder at every step.

Thence to the greatest of Gaudi's works which cost him the last 15 years of his life, the cathedral of the Segrada Familia. He was never to see it completed but he did finish the crypt and the Nativity portal. I suspect he knew he would not see it completed in his lifetime and so left conceptual drawings and radical design sketches for later generations to follow. Well, those later generations are actually having a bit of trouble following them, such is the difference between genius and engineering. However it is intended for completion in 2026, 100 years after the designer's death.

The cathedral itself defies description. It follows no traditional form at all. It is not Gothic, or Neo-Classical, or Modernist or any other for that matter. It is purely and simply Gaudi.

The vast interior is an ordered forest of rising columns which in turn divide into other columns as they approach the roof, exactly like a tree does. The stained glass in the windows is in shades of reds, yellows and  oranges on the western or evening side of the basilica. On the morning side the colours are more in the blues, greens and mauves. Depending on the time of day the interior can be alive in wild and vibrant colours of orange, or bathed in soft and mellow shades of blue.

Oh, look at the pictures. I just can't do it justice with words.

The Pedrera is built around two court yards that bring light into the very core of the building.

This private staircase serviced the lower levels where the Mila family had their residence.

Boring old chimneys and vents get the full Gaudi treatment and metamorph into arcane figures on the rooftop terrace. Some represent water and its shaping effects on stone.

Some represent warriors.

All in all the rooftop terrace is a bewildering collection of shapes and figures and undulating flooring.

Some are even mozaiced in the shattered glass of champagne bottles to give them a scaly serpentine look.

Supporting the rooftop terrace is another Gaudi innovation.

The Attic is a serpentine arrangement of catenary arches inspired by nature.

Eg. the ribs of a constrictor.

Even the furniture in the Pedrera was designed by Gaudi to harmoniously blend with the design. And
all of it was functional. Notice the scrolling on this stool. Place your hand here to help yourself up and your palms and fingers will naturally fall comfortably into the scroll work.

The Pedrera had the latest stuff and appliances built in for the paying tenants.
The newly invented telephone for instance. Hey, this was the 1920s remember.

A novel innovation was a spy hole so tenants could see who was knocking without opening the door. Common place now but revolutionary then.

One of the colonnaded walks in Guell Park.
A catenary shape to the supporting arches can be seen here as well.

Supporting what? A walking path with viewing niches and organic ballastrading.
All in keeping with the organic nature of the park.

The monument area with is curlicued buildings and outrageous mosaics.

More delightfully colourful mosaics on the viewing niches.

Inclined pillars with flaired capitals to resemble trees growing in a forest.

The water feature in the monument area.
Amazingly mozaiced in wild colours and depicting animals and insects from nature.

I will always think of this particular building as the Gingerbread House.

Mozaiced statuary of animals in the water feature.

The camelion particularly appealed to Gaudi.
It's natural colour is all of them and its natural placement is everywhere.
It could have been made with Gaudi in mind.