The Amazing Gaudi's Barcelona Wonderland

By Alistair Summers

One city in the world which is a living breathing piece of art, full of colour, music, mounds of people and incredible architecture, is Barcelona. For any lover of art and culture, Barcelona is a gold mine of treasures. Not just that, it's a gold and jewel encrusted, dipped in honey, formed from the finest onyx, coated in a fine powder of all the rubies in the world crushed into snow, decorated with the most decadent materials known to man, with a bow on top, and a cherry. In short it looks nice.

The most prominent artist to have left his mark on Barcelona is the Catalan architect Antoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet. Gaudí has his own distinct sculptural style which now graces some of the most iconic images of Barcelona.

The most famous and most incredible of all his creations is the Sagrada Família. This absolutely gigantic church began being constructed in 1882 and is still not finished. Cranes still stand above the great building today and the projected completion date is currently around 2026. Gaudí began work on the project from 1883 and he spent the final 15 years of his life dedicated to it. It is almost impossible to describe as it is so complicated. It has several large towers with endlessly ornate finishes with (when it's finished) a huge tower in the middle with a large cross on top. When it is completed it will be the highest building in Barcelona.

Another very famous Gaudí construction is Park Güell, which was commissioned by Count Eusebio Güell, originally as an idyllic housing site, but when it proved to be an unpopular distance from the centre of the city, no one bought any of the 60 empty lots which left the only residents as Güell and Gaudí. The park is like a tropical garden, decorated with Gaudí's iconic smashed porcelain and twisting designs. There is a magnificent staircase through the main entrance gates which lead up to a wide space (which was originally meant to be the housing sites market place) with smashed porcelain sideswiping seating around it. It has to be seen to be believed.

Other magnificent Gaudí sites in Barcelona include, Casa Milà (or Pedrera) which is located near the centre of town. It is essentially an apartment block but famously has not one single right angle or flat edge in the entire structure. Barcelona exudes the kind of magnificent beauty that can inspire a budding artist to get their hands on some drawing inks or get a veteran artiste to dust off their field easel.

If you can, visit Barcelona, for an artistic treat which will stay with you forever. Plus the weather is ace!

Article Source: http://interpret.zar.vg

About The Author
With his own field easel, Sam Qam has long been a budding artist longing to put to canvas the beauty of Barcelona. If he could only find his drawing inks.