Barcelona – The City of Gaudi and the Modernistas

Barcelona is a very old city having been around since pre-Roman times, and it’s also very modern as it went through a boom during the industrial revolution. So you have an interesting mix of ancient ruins under the city, medieval churches in the old town, fantastical Modernista buildings in the newer parts of the city and bunch of everything in between.

This was our last stop in our Spanish adventure and it did not disappoint. Without any research or planning we also somehow ended up staying in the hipster district which meant far too easy access to tasty food.

We didn’t know what to expect when we first went to see our first Gaudi building. All we knew was that he was famous and that he had designed Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia (which will one day be the tallest church in the world).

Our first stop was Palau Guell and as soon as we saw it we knew we were going to love the rest of his work. The Modernista style is so completely different to everything else we’d seen in Spain, we thought we’d seen all the varieties of Spanish architecture but we were wrong.

Gaudi was a bit of a mad genius who got his inspiration from nature and said that ‘nature has no straight lines’, so all of his buildings are full of curves. Apparently they guy giving Gaudi his architecture degree said ‘I don’t know if we have given the degree to a madman or a genius, only time will tell’.

And Gaudi wasn’t the only Modernista architect of the time, Lluis Domenech i Montaner was the guy who designed the Hospital of Sant Pau. It’s definitely the prettiest hospital we’ve ever seen.

And I feel a little sorry for the guy who designed Casa Amatller (Josep Puig i Cadafalch) because it’s overshadowed by Gaudi’s Casa Batllo next door. Otherwise it would probably be a major attraction of it’s own.

The most spectacular building by Gaudi is of course the Sagrada Familia.

It’s still under construction, it’s been going since 1882, but is planned to be finished by 2026. (Though since this is Spain, I’d add a few years to that estimate) Gaudi invented new types of arches and support columns so when it is eventually finished it will be the tallest church in the world at 170m tall. For comparison, the tallest towers in the picture above are 100m tall. The final thing is going to be bloody big.

While most of the things we saw were Gaudi-related we did go see a bunch of interesting museums we wouldn’t have seen otherwise if we didn’t have the Barcelona Card letting us in for free, including the collection of random stuff by the world’s biggest hoarder. It was here we realised that the difference between ‘collecting’ and ‘hoarding’ is how neatly it’s all presented. The museum takes up 4 floors and is organised by category, so you have a room full of keys, a room full of fans, a section of opera glasses, a room for smoking related stuff and so on.

Barcelona is a city that needs lots of time to see it’s many things, especially since it’s so spread out, but it’s definitely worth it. It was great to leave Spain with a bang, though I’m sure we’ll be back not too far into the future.