Let's Talk About Gaudí.

So when I decided to come to Barcelona for a month, there were a few reasons - most of them vague, one quite practical. I knew I wanted to be on the Mediterranean coast - that was never in question. Also, it was always my intention to visit Mallorca while in Spain, but I wasn't just going to call my cousins and be like, "Hey, guys, is it cool if I crash at your place for a month?"

(Honestly, I think they would have been cool with it, but that wasn't what I was trying to do in any case.)

So Barcelona is one of the closest departure points to Mallorca. The only one closer (that's a major city, from which the boats leave) is Valencia, and to be honest, it was a toss-up at that point. I'd never heard anything bad about Valencia, I'd assumed it was beautiful, but Barcelona had been getting a lot of good press in the past couple of years.

I was a little intimidated by the idea of staying in Catalunya. I knew everyone here speaks Catalán, and I decidedly do not. But everyone told me that everyone here also speaks Castillian, so that was reassuring. Beyond that, I kept hearing about how full of great art and culture it was. These are vague accolades to be sure, but I was interested.

So when I got here, I was immediately blown away by how pretty it was, sure - but as I've recorded, I quickly became acquainted with the work of one Antoní Gaudí, Barcelona's most famous architect, whose genius has inspired generations of architects who've followed him.

Blah blah blah.

I saw La Sagrada Familia, probably his most famous work; I saw the Park Güell, which is the thing that everyone who´d ever even thought of Barcelona told me to go see. Both were absolutely breathtaking, for sure, and worth the hype. But yesterday and today I went to see the two apartment houses in the city he´s most famous for designing; Casa Battló and Casa Milá (better known as La Pedrera, or "The Quarry").

Now, while Vinnie was here, we'd planned to go see these on his last day in town, but I was so exhausted from our sojourn to Sitges (possibly my new favorite place on earth; Sitges will get its own blog post, rest assured), I opted to stay in that day, aside from running a few errands. Apparently, according to the Rough Guide, Vinnie had said, Casa Milá was the more impressive of the two, and more worth going to see. So, knowing that my days in Barcelona were numbered, but not really wanting to travel too far, and recognizing that there was more Gaudí work to be seen, I opted to take a look at these houses.





I went first to Casa Battló; its exterior is the one that had appealed most immediately to me. La Pedrera is clearly impressive as well, but Battló´s colors and curves drew me from the first time I saw it, and I´ve only come to think it more beautiful each time I´ve passed it.

The interior was hardly a disappointment. The building was commissioned by the Battló family; it had been a pre-existing structure, and they hired Gaudí to remodel it. Without getting into too many details about the whys and the hows (though I found them really interesting, how he combined form and function so seamlessly), he did just that.



As my audioguide told me, Gaudí was greatly inspired by nature, and the shapes and structures that appear in his architecture are ones that he discovered in the natural world. The colors, curves, arches, warped wood and glass that make up Casa Battló are inspired by the sea, and even on the rooftop, that motif remained consistent. Every inch was crafted with aesthetic and utilitarian purpose - it´s not just Modernist wank.



La Pedrera is a larger structure. The rooms of the apartment they let us see were not, to me, quite as interesting or impressive, but they were full of furniture from the period, which was really cool to see. The building - the indoor patios, the curved staircases, the balconies, everything - was really beautiful, don´t get me wrong. But it was working with more of an earth theme, as its name suggests, and I´ve always had more of an aesthetic and personal affinity for all things marine.



In the attic, though, there was not only some truly impressive architecture, but a ton of information on Gaudí´s work, with audiovisual aids, scale models, and a bunch of neat stuff. It was fascinating to learn more about the artist, where he got his ideas from, and examples of how his work not only carries its weight in artistic merit, but how he revolutionized architecture with methods that employed efficiency, ecological friendliness, and really, just ingenious thinking.



Also, we got to go on the roof - which had the craziest views!



So what about Gaudí? I don´t know - he was the descendant of coppersmiths, and he learned his trade from them. In architectural school, one of his professors said they were giving a degree either to a genius or a lunatic (probably a bit of both, if other geniuses are any indication). He had this amazing, creative eye and vision that melded nature and modernity in gorgeous and original ways.

All of this is bunk though - this whole post, really. How can I articulate how seeing all this affected me? How can I communicate, without sounding like a pretentious twit, the feelings that being inside these structures, seeing the work in front of me, inspired? Can I admit I was a little awestruck at points? I mean, I just did, but I was. It´s a small miracle to me that one person could have such vision; could be artist and technician, architect and visionary.

I'm a little dreamy, a bit of a romantic, especially when it comes to the arts. I've never been a visual artist - I used to sketch and doodle when I was a kid, but getting better took work - hard work. Writing evolved much more naturally for me - I did it all the time, so practicing didn't feel like practicing, it just felt like doing something I enjoyed (for the most part). This is not to compare my writing to Gaudí's genius - not even a little. If I could manage a pinprick of Gaudí's creative power, his uniqueness of vision, the unbearable beauty of his talent, I'd still be way ahead. But seeing his work made me want to make things, made me want to push at the boundaries of my expression; words seem so flat, so simple and plain compared to the polyglot that is visual structure - not even painting, not even sculpture, but an entire building of communication, where every tile, every stone, every length of wood or iron is saying something, is -being- something. Jesus god. Amazing.