Sept-Oct. 2015

From the Vault: Barcelona

29 Monday Feb 2016

I made a list of my favorite places in Barcelona. I’m not sure why I never posted it, so here it is now. It is followed by my notes on “useful to know” items for Barcelona and Europe more widely.

Barcelona Highlights
Best way to spend a Sunday (many stores are closed): Montjuic park. Visit any of these places that are within the park: Castle, Botanical Garden, Miro Museum, National Museum of the Art of Catalonia, Poble Espanol. If you’d just like a stroll, you can forgo all of these and walk along the top of the hill from the Miramar Hotel along a path that has a view of the sea from the W Hotel and superyacht basin to the cruise ship port and the container ship port.

Favorite sights:
Sagrada Familia basilica
Miro museum
Picasso museum
National Museum of the Art of Catalonia
MUHBA-Museum of the History of Barcelona, walk through the excavation of ancient Barcelona back to the time of the Romans

Gaudi and Catalan Modernism:
Everyone visits Barcelona to see the architecture of Antoni Gaudi (Gow-DEE). There are other fascinating buildings by his competitors and students.
• Favorite Gaudi works: Parc Guell, Palau Guell, Casa Batllo, Casa Vicens (will be open to the public starting in 2016)
• Favorite works of others:
o Palau de la Musica Catalana and the Hospital de la Santa Creu I Sant Pau, or the Sant Pau recinte modernista (https://www.santpaubarcelona.org/en/qui-som) both by Gaudi’s competitor Domenech I Montaner and are fabulous examples of the extreme creativity of Catalan modernism. The “hospital” complex is no longer a hospital, is recently renovated and still finding its mission but the exteriors are gorgeous and reminiscent of a section of Disney World because of the number of restored period buildings included.

Day (or two) trips from Barcelona
o Beaches. There are beaches that range from a short bus or metro ride away from the old city, to a couple of hours. Barceloneta is the area closest to the city and has a highly developed area of restaurants along the shore. The beaches have facilities. Frank Gehry built a gigantic sculpture of a fish that looks over the beaches and the former Olympic harbor. We visited these beaches by bus.
o Beaches out of town. We visited Caldes d’Estrach one day, and Sant Pol de Mar another. Sant Pol has a hermitage dating to the 11th century on a knoll overlooking the water that is worth a look. These beaches were accessible by the regional short-distance trains (Rodalies de Catalunya). Try Sitges and the nearby town of Garraf, where there is a structure by Gaudi that is now a restaurant.
o Tarragona. We spent a day in Tarragona, traveling both ways on the train from the main Sants station in Barcelona. The lesson from this is that you need to know the final destination of the train you want to get on, as well as the stop you want, as the train may not be marked with your destination.
o Figueres. We stayed overnight in Roses on the Bay of Roses and recommend it.
In Figueres we visited the Dali Museum. There is also the Dali home in Portlligat, which we did not have time to visit. The bay is good for swimming and the beach if the weather cooperates. Nearby are two excellent areas for birdwatching, the Cap de Creus Natural Park, and the Emporda marshes (Aiguamolls de l’Empordà). We visited the marshes and had a wonderful day. There are hides to sit in, lots of parking and helpful ranger staff. We also did not have time to visit the archaeological of Empúries, the largest Greek outpost in Spain. There is also a later Roman occupation. The name of the town is related to the word “Emporium” meaning place of trade. For this trip, we rented a car from a Europcar office, located in a parking garage a short subway ride from our apartment. This proved more convenient than going to the airport to pick up a car, though not different in price.
• There is an excellent birdwatching area very close to the Barcelona airport, but ironically, unless you are a strong hiker and have a deft hand with the bus system, a car is needed.

Good to Know for travel in Europe/Spain/Barcelona
o Europe–Credit cards must have a chip to work everywhere. US credit cards that slide do work, but not in every kiosk, such as in train stations.
• Europe–It helps to have a phone data plan so that you can use GPS.
• Europe–Many apartments have a clothes washer but not a dryer. Apartments often have clotheslines or access to clotheslines on the roof of the building. You may have to ask a neighbor or concierge how to get access.
• Europe–If you are eligible for an ICOM, ICOMOS or other card that gives you a discount on museum entrance fees, consider getting one. Having to decide whether it’s worth another 12-15€ to check out a lesser known museum makes economic sense but sometimes the exhibits in the smaller museums can be interesting and less crowded than elsewhere. We saw an exhibit, Humans+: the Future of our Species, at the Centro de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona (CCCB) that was excellent. There was only one other exhibit at the center, however. With our membership there was no charge, and I probably would have skipped it for 8€.
• Europe–Look for free events in listings online English-language newspapers, free handouts from hotels, visitor information offices and guidebooks. I found free concerts by reading posters in the street. There are often free concerts associated with festivals. Not all of these are advertised to tourists. The Merce festival in Barcelona in September included a very large program of free concerts. The full listing only appeared in the Catalan program, paper or pdf. The Palau de la Musica Catalana features highly publicized flamenco concerts, but also hosts inexpensive concerts produced in house. Thus we saw Nosferatu with live organ accompaniment by the chief organist for Sagrada Familia on Nov. 1.
• Spain–Store hours can be unfamiliar. In Barcelona, many stores are closed from 2-3:30 pm, and open until 8 pm.
• Spain–Trash may go out to large containers on the corner of the block rather than go in containers in your building. Same with recycling.
• Spain–Dishwashers may need to be refilled with salt periodically. You’ll know because your dishes will come out filmed with white stuff. I went online and found where to add it in the model in our apartment.
• Spain–Lots of people speak English, but don’t hesitate to try out your Spanish, no matter how limited.
• Spain–If you are over 60 and plan to travel by train, spend a few minutes at the station and get a “targeta daurada” (gold card). It makes you eligible for a significant discount on train trips, though you’ll need help at the ticket machine the first time you use it to purchase a ticket. It cost us 6€ each and is good for one year throughout Spain.
• Barcelona–Unless you make multiple trips per day per person on the buses, subway, train, it doesn’t pay to buy a monthly, weekly or daily unlimited transit pass. The T-10 transit card for Barcelona is very useful because it can be shared between two people (maybe up to 4 people). All the other multi-ride tickets are specific to an individual. Each ticket includes free transfers to most other forms of transport within 90 minutes of your departure time.
• Barcelona–Aerial tramways don’t participate in the common ticketing sytem and cost significantly more each way (7-11€). You may consider taking a ride to view the city but don’t count on these as transport to a specific destination. The lines are usually long.
• Barcelona–If you are going someplace that requires you to be on time, identify two ways to get there so that you can take a bus if the taxis are blocked or on strike, the metro if the bus route is blocked by a demonstration, or a bus if the metro is on a slowdown. These things happened to us.

We leave Barcelona

05 Thursday Nov 2015

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Festivals

I am sorry to be leaving Barcelona. It is a walkable, livable city, architecturally rich, with a new vista or decorated facade around every corner. Most people have a balcony and there are lots of people in the streets. There are many daily markets and even more appear on weekends. People take festivals and traditions seriously. Take the castellers, they are not just forming towers, but all kinds of human sculpture. Note the satisfied coach on the left. This is a youth group. I’m impressed.

: The girl in the helmet is Level 11

: Getting this far was difficult.

: Then they turned in a circle.

: At the end, each upper girl does a forward roll into the arms of team members to dismount.

No place is perfect. I understand that Barcelona still has high unemployment among college educated young people. The real estate market is described as just now rebounding from 2008. There are beggars and street people. I still think it is a wonderful city.

I cannot say what has been my favorite experience. I made a list of all the things we did and places we went, something different almost every day of the 60 that we were here, and some days more than one stop on the tour. I didn’t want to forget anything. We had a last meeting with Joan, who provided our apartment and we chatted about Barcelona and travel and home. When I started this blog, I put Gaudi tile work on the banner because visiting Barcelona was a long-standing dream. I have to consider changing the image now and see what the future holds. For now we are on to the US and then to Peru for the winter. The next two posts after this one are informational, highlights of Barcelona, and a “Good to Know” section with a few practical thoughts.

Thanks for coming with us this far.

Gaudi Day, the Sagrada Familia church

05 Thursday Nov 2015

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Architecture, Churches

We were going to use our ICOM cards to visit Sagrada Familia, but it requires waiting in the long ticket line and then returning for the timed entry, often late in the afternoon. We caved and bought the online tickets.

Even waiting until the end of October didn’t diminish the crowds much, though we got right in at our ticketed time. Now fully roofed and dedicated as a minor basilica (no resident cardinal) by Pope Benedict XVI, Sagrada Familia looks very different from the last time I visited 25 years ago. It is much less a ruin and more a church. The constant loud sound of power tools detracts from the atmosphere, but does show that work is ongoing.

Optimists see the church finished in 2026. The stained glass is beautiful, though Gaudi was also very smart to design the windows of the highest stories to be clear so that the church is full of light.

In some churches, stained glass appears like embers in the dark. At Sagrada Familia it adds color to the light. Here is a single small pane.

The color gradations from window to window are spectacular. Here’s the big picture.

I purchased the additional ticket to go up in one of the towers, but I didn’t realize that it was only an elevator UP in the Nativity Tower. You walk down. It wasn’t as bad as I realized and the view was fascinating because you see the work currently underway.

Note the construction office perched in the rafters.

We could see the details.

It is a breathtaking structure.

Gaudi incorporated many animals into his design. Here are some of them.

: Snakes

: Lizards

: Crocodile

: Chickens

: Tropical bird

: Turkey

: Kermit

Here is Gaudi’s idea of the ceiling as a forest canopy.

I have to point out that God the Father has a lot of competition in this church. Gaudi was sure that his work was great, but he’d be horrified to find that it competed with religious observance. For such a wildly creative person, he was devout and ascetic, never married and worked all the time.

He spent the last months of his life living inside the constructed portion of Sagrada Familia. He died after being hit by a tram, unrecognized for his first couple of days in the hospital because he was dressed in work clothes and carried no ID. Would it have been different if he were wearing a suit and hat, carrying a briefcase?

Roman Barcino (Barcelona)

29 Thursday Oct 2015

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Archaeological sites

We spent two full days exploring Roman Barcelona and now, much later, a day in Tarragona (we could have stayed a week), visiting the Roman ruins there. Archaeology is alive and well in both cities. This post is on Barcino, the next on Tarraco.

In Barcelona, there is an ongoing program of archaeological excavations in the area of the Roman walled city that has been underway for many years. A guide to walking around the Barri Gotic, the oldest portion of the city that still retains a bit of Roman wall and street layout, includes stops at surviving places. We found that the Roman features were right under our noses in places that we had already visited, but only with a list that said to look here, look there, did we see the Roman remains underfoot.

An archaeologist’s puzzle. Which wall came first, and what happened after that and after that?

There is a Roman cemetery in a park beneath the streets.

The convent over the tombs burned down in 1936 and the area underwent urban renewal in the 1950s when these were discovered and incorporated into the landscaping of the area, now called Plaza Vila de Madrid. http://www.barcelonaturisme.com/wv3/es/page/492/muhba-via-sepulcral-romana.html

The tour of Roman Barcelona took us all over the old part of the city and showed that the part of the city retains the shape established by its Roman walls. The walking tour ends at the Museu de la Historia de Barcelona (MUHBA). This museum was established when renovation in the city center revealed the remains of occupation from the Romans up through the Middle Ages. Archaeological investigations ran continuously for more than 30 years and continue from time to time today. A network of stairways, ramps and boardwalks over the ancient remains is accessible to visitors. The associated information shows the relationships among the different eras represented, but it is a maze of interwoven layers. Even with the detailed presentation of levels and layers, we had trouble following what went with what. The fact that a Roman city lies below Barcelona and a portion of it is there to look at is fascinating.

This wall of miscellaneous stone includes various shapes and one with a Roman inscription. Materials were reused over and over.

We are looking over the wine-making facilities of an ancient occupation. The archaeological work continues for a very extensive area underground.

Later, when we visited the Santa Caterina market, we found there is an extensive section of preserved excavations under the market and the plaza in front of it. This isn’t surprising, as the market is one block east of the cathedral. The posted information traced constructions back to the 11th century in this area, though there could be even early material below the stone buildings.

The apotheosis of Modernism–Lluís Domènech i Montaner

28 Wednesday Oct 2015

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Architecture

I started with a list of 130 buildings considered part of architectural “Modernisme” in Barcelona. I began collecting them like postage stamps. (some are on my post “Barcelona Modernism”). Whenever Jonathan decides to rest his knees, I go out and look at a few more buildings. This reached its logical conclusion the other day when I walked a huge rectangle to count a few more structures and came home with very sore legs. I am now winding down, checking out a couple more highlights and throwing in the towel on getting to others. I will have checked out more than 86 modernist structures, photographed a lot of them, and saw the inside of a few.

Top of the list after Gaudi’s work come two people (IMO), Lluís Domènech i Montaner and Josep Maria Jujol i Gibert. The title of this post refers to Domènech i Montaner’s Palau de la Musica Catalana. This building is so ornate that it makes high Victorian look simple. He threw the entire book of modernism at this building and let it all stick.

Originally, the Palau (palace) was created to be the home of Orfeo Catala, a choir group, music school, performing arts organization. Its organization and governance have changed over the years, but it still hosts lots of wonderful concerts, both locally produced and brought in by promoters. One stairwell is a shrine to the first conductor of the Orfeo.

The main auditorium of the Palau has everything that Modernist designers used. It has columns, tile, stained glass, carved wood, marquetry (inlaid wood), and paint. All these media are then all combined in flat, raised, and 3D forms.

This is the view up toward the ceiling from my seat. There is a tour to see all this, but a ticket to one of the locally organized concerts was only 6€, so I decided that I’d look around during the intermission. I was looking forward to it, an organ concert by Jennifer Bate, a renowned player, but in the end it was cancelled because the organ computer links malfunctioned, so I didn’t have much to do but take photos for a half hour until the official word came down. It was good for photos, but not much for music. I went home and listened to her play on Apple Music.

On either side of the stage are carved decorations that are each almost three stories tall.

Around the edge of the stage area is a mosaic frieze of figures with high relief busts at the top of each individual.

The level of detail is remarkable. This is the only place I have ever seen the balusters or uprights in a staircase made of glass. I would guess there are more than a thousand of them around the theater.

(See the railing above the figures in the previous photo, as well.)

Ceramic rosettes are featured in several places, at the top of the balusters, on the ceiling of the main auditorium, and at the top of several columns.

The ceilings are unusually chock full of decoration.

The pink lines are high relief ceramic tiles. Above the door are carved wood rosettes. On the right is a lamp topped with stained glass circles and on the left is a patinated copper fixture.

(got that?)

Stained glass panels in a door with a row of glass balusters in the background.

Lots of tiled columns and stained glass.

The exterior is equally ornate. This is the base of a pillar.

Every pillar appears to be tiled with a different pattern.

Last but not least, I visited another building that Lluís Domènech i Montaner worked on, the Casa Lleo i Morera. Here is possibly the most beautiful sun room ever made.

Who wouldn’t want to sit here?

A lighthearted look at the Romanesque

24 Saturday Oct 2015

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Churches, Museums, Romanesque

The 11th and 12th centuries were a busy time in the Pyrenees, people were building churches in every little valley and painting them from roof to doors with frescoes. That was a lot of work and a long time ago.

Time passed. At the beginning of the 20th century when museums were building their collections in the US, European art was considered essential because it showed a relationship with the Old World, an appreciation of high culture. In 1919, the rector of a small rural church in the Pyrenees with a very elaborate Romanesque fresco behind the altar sold it. After passing through a few hands it arrived at the MFA Boston in 1921 (MFA paid $92,500–how much of that do you figure the rector got?….). For more:

http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/christ-in-majesty-with-symbols-of-the-four-evangelists-31898

Great publicity ensued and the Spanish in Catalonia got wind of the fact that the artwork in these remote and sometimes abandoned churches was prized elsewhere. As a result, the regional government purchased the interiors of 19 rural churches, removed the frescoes and brought them to Barcelona, to the Museu Nacional del Arte de Catalunya. The galleries have dimensions, apses and niches that allow the frescoes to be shown in positions similar to their original location. The video showing how the frescoes were removed is cringe-worthy today because conservation standards have changed. There were no cotton gloves, no careful peeling of the fresco. There’s some chiseling, and some flapping of frescoes, but they made it and are still around. Here are some of my favorites. WITH APOLOGIES TO THE HISTORY OF ART.

It was tough to be alive in the 11th century. People had been embarrassed since the days of Adam and Eve.

It was difficult to make it to adulthood. If you were a bad child, punishment was severe.

Into the pot with you, bad children!

Sometimes the stress of life gave a person tremendous aches and pains:

Medical care was very haphazard. Take surgery, for example. Sometimes, the doctors weren’t even sure where to start.

Don’t get me started about old age! The treatment for macular degeneration, well, the odds were against a cure:

Religion was a real force in the world, and people were watching you all the time.

Fortunately, there was help:

Don’t worry apostles, the Power Puff girls are coming! (Same eyes)

To see all 19 galleries of Romanesque frescoes in Barcelona, visit the MNAC.

http://www.museunacional.cat/en

A Cabinet of Curiosities in a park full of wonders

18 Sunday Oct 2015

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Parks, walks

It was our week in Montjuic Park, where we spent one day walking from the castle along the ridge, looking at the commercial harbor. We watched a container ship back in to a slip. I was sure it would all be done electronically, after all, a person is so small that the idea of pulling a supertanker with a rope seemed impossible.

Wrong.

The ship backed in as neat as you please and then tossed a rope to a guy on the wharf. He dropped it over a bollard and the ship pulled against the rope to move the bow in to shore. What is that rope made of? This is a container ship we’re talking about.

Next we strolled around looking for the Botanical Garden. We had a lovely walk, but never found the garden. We did find a couple of birds, a nice change from the pigeons and Monk parakeets that have taken over most of the city.

After that, we looked up the location of the Botanical Garden and went there. It was lovely. A temporary exhibit in the Botanical Research Institute showed the personal cabinet of curiosities of the Salvador family that now belongs to the Botanical Garden. In addition to 1200 plant samples that are now part of the herbarium, some of the original painted wood cabinets and drawers survive and were on display, along with some of the original collected materials, from as early as 1714 and kept together until well into the 20th century.

Specimens like this sea turtle are part of the reason there are so few left in the wild.

The Salvador family, who owned this collection, held onto it for five generations, though there was decreasing interest after the first hundred years. Fortunately, the cabinets were left in the pharmacy building that the early generations ran and though deteriorated, it was never discarded. The collection was an important scientific venue for the entire city of Barcelona at the turn of the 19th century. The present exhibit was developed for the tercentenary (1714-2014) of the collection.

http://agenda.museuciencies.cat/ca/museus/institut_botanic_de_barcelona/activitats/exposicions/2014/05/20/salvadoriana/

Compare this one with the cabinet of curiosities created by the Tradescant family (father and son) in England. These ‘Keeper(s) of his Majesty’s Gardens, Vines, and Silkworms’ traveled widely for their times and their cabinet made its way to Oxford and formed the nucleus of the original Ashmolean Museum.

http://www.ashmolean.org/ash/amulets/tradescant/tradescant00.html

When we were bird watching, we saw all the mounted birds shown in the Salvador’s cabinet (except the owl)–the flamingo, stork, marsh harrier and duck.

Most of the live birds have more color than the ones in the cabinet of curiosities that are more than 100 years old.There was a large flock of storks in the marsh we visited last week, but this one perched close to us and didn’t mind the photos. When I looked closely at my picture I noticed he has only one leg. He might need to stop in at the nearby wildlife rehabilitation center. Maybe he already goes there for PT.

Last but not least we visited the Archaeology Museum. Spain has a very long record of human occupation and this was well illustrated. The archaeological details throughout were largely based on sites in Catalonia. I was impressed by how much a person from this region could relate to history of the ancient past from its tremendous continuity.

The recently reopened Ethnographic Collection is near the Archaeology Museum, also in Montjuic. The exhibits were on everyday life in Spain in the past, organized by industry, interesting, but not novel. In contrast, the open storage on the ground floor was wonderful to look at. The permanent collection includes the most extensive collection of ancient glass that I’ve seen on display this side of the Corning Museum.

Montjuic is a remarkable city park when you realize that it holds the Museum of the Art of Catalonia, Miro Museum, all the places I’ve just mentioned, and the stadium and swimming facilities left over from the Olympics. Throw in a cable car, the Magic Fountain, views across both the city and the Mediterranean–it’s pretty comprehensive entertainment.

October’s bright blue weather and a semi-abandoned science zone

09 Friday Oct 2015

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Architecture, Beaches, Museums

That was the name of a poem I had to memorize in about 3rd grade–I don’t remember anything but the title. The description is very apt, as the days have been exquisitely blue and bright, even as the sun rises a bit later and sets a little earlier every day. We’ve visited two large city parks, the Ciutadella and Montjuic, as well as spending another day at the beach. I even went for a dip.

The Mediterranean from the Ermita de Sant Pau in the town of Sant Pol de Mar. There’s not a lot in the town, but walking to the top of the hill provides this gorgeous view, and the hermitage (we’re standing on its terrace) is the oldest building around, started in the 10th century. The beach is the real draw here.

In the city, we are now focusing on the great parks. The Ciutadella seems to have been intended as a multi-site natural history zone, but that was around 1888. Most of the buildings were repurposed or are currently abandoned or semi-abandoned, while the collections have moved elsewhere. An eclectic group of stops remains. There’s the spectacular “Monumental Fountain”

There’s also a mastodon:

And a lake with rowboats:

The science museum buildings are all from the modernist era:

This, for example, is the Umbracle, or shade house, a building with a slatted roof but no windows so that air circulates but the bright sun doesn’t burn the leaves of tender plants. There’s also a Hivernacle, or green house. I would have liked to have my office in the Castle of the Three Dragons, now a science research library.

The idea of science in the park is lovely, but the reality is not. All the buildings we visited are in disrepair, the castle above is roped off for repairs and closed to the public. The contents of the plant houses are well on their way to running wild and the greenhouse has broken windows. A homeless woman was drying her clothes on the greenhouse fence.

When we went home, we tried to find out what had happened to natural history, as the large geology museum between the two plant houses was also closed, and abandoned-looking. The collections have all been moved to a large contemporary building, the Museu Blau, in another part of the city. What is discouraging in terms of promoting science to the public is that there is no explanation at all about the buildings in the Ciutadella park, among the most heavily visited in the city. A visitor is left with the idea that there is no interest in science, because there is nothing to tell you why these vintage buildings are abandoned or where you can find the science museum today. Since there is an effort to preserve every structure considered modernist and the structures in the park seem to be in the limbo between active use and repurposing as part of the “modernism route.”

Next time we’ll visit the zoo, located in the southern portion of the Ciutadella.

Gaudi Week, Day 5. We blink.

05 Monday Oct 2015

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Architecture, Churches

Sagrada Familia, the still unfinished masterwork that consumed the final years of Gaudi’s life, is the single must-see work of Gaudi’s for anyone visiting Barcelona. That’s not my opinion, that’s from tourist statistics that suggest 85% of visitors to the city make a stop at the church. It’s now a ‘minor’ basilica (no resident cardinal) dedicate by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011. Construction will not end until 2026 at the earliest and tall construction cranes hover over the massive structure. Eventually, a street will be vacated to provide space for the final section.

This is the “Nativity” facade of Sagrada Familia. There are two others, the “Resurrection” facade and the “Gloria” facade, each with four tall spires like this one. An even taller center spire is intended to complete the project.

The newer construction is intended to carry out Gaudi’s intentions, but the Resurrection facade, mostly complete, is created of smoother stone, probably to simplify construction, and you can see the difference.

The upshot of our reconnaissance was that we did not purchase our tickets. To get our ICOM admission, we need to wait in line (no on-line sales) and take the next time available. We were put off by the crowds and tentatively plan to visit during the last week in October.

We blinked.

Gaudi can be overwhelming. Maybe it will be better after a bit of a break.

What we discovered in visiting Sagrada Familia is the astonishing number of visitors. When we arrived on a Monday (OK, it was midday), the line to purchase a ticket was 30 minutes long. If you purchased a ticket, your entry time would be 4 pm–all earlier times sold out–then you walked to the opposite side of the building, 2 blocks away, to wait. Even with a ticket, it takes another 30 minutes of standing in line to get into the building.

There are more than 3 million visitors per year to Sagrada Familia. To put it in familar terms, that is about 30% more than the largest number of people who have ever visited the Field Museum in a year (Think King Tut, Sue the first year). That means that every day of the year around 8,000 people visit. That turns out to be a lot of people.

Gaudi Week, Day 4–Museums of Catalan Crafts

05 Monday Oct 2015

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Architecture, Museums

After seeing places built by Gaudi himself, it’s not quite as interesting to go to a museum. On the other hand, museums often have the furnishings that have been removed over the years from the houses and buildings that Gaudi designed. The Museum of Catalan Modernism is a relatively small collection, but with some fantastic furniture, some by Gaudi and some by other craftsmen, including the most elaborate marquetry desk either of us has ever seen.

This is another elaborate drop front desk from the Palau Guell. It makes you wonder whether anyone ever used it. I think you would be wondering whether you would damage the finish every time you sat down at it.

Some works have great details. Why did the Catalans like dragons and bats? No idea.

We also visited the National Museum of Catalan Art. This is much larger, but begins with the Romans and ends with Catalan contemporary artists. We looked at so much art in the latter museum that we were almost worn out before we got to the Gaudi exhibit.

I have few photos of furniture designed by Gaudi. There are very recognizable chairs made by Gaudi for the Casa Battlo. Because it has no furnishings in it today, there are a lot of pieces to go around and many museums have a chair or two.

There are single and double chairs similar to this one, along with end tables and other chairs. You can purchase a repro for about 1300€.

The piece below is earlier, from the Palau Guell, one of Gaudi’s earlier projects for Eusebi Guell. It is more clearly related to Art Nouveau with all its curling sections but also because it is a combination piece, settee/end table and display cabinet.

There are more Gaudi-designed structures, the most distinctive remaining is the church of the Sagrada Familia.

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Category Archives: Barcelona

From the Vault: Barcelona

We leave Barcelona

Gaudi Day, the Sagrada Familia church

Roman Barcino (Barcelona)

The apotheosis of Modernism–Lluís Domènech i Montaner

A lighthearted look at the Romanesque

A Cabinet of Curiosities in a park full of wonders

October’s bright blue weather and a semi-abandoned science zone

Gaudi Week, Day 5. We blink.

Gaudi Week, Day 4–Museums of Catalan Crafts

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