La Sagrada Família

My breath was taken away, my eyes filled with tears as I first glimpsed the afternoon light streaming, red, orange, yellow, green and blue, filling La Sagrada Família.  Like nothing I have ever experienced, the feeling can not be captured in words or images.  Wonder, amazement, awe, holiness, Gaudí's sacred dream realized.

Park Güel

We spent a beautiful sunny morning in Park Güel, the grounds of Eusebi Güel's planned community that never really got off the ground.  Only two homes were ever built - the show house, which became Gaudí 's residence and a caretaker's house.  Gaudí used shards of manufactured tiles, a mosaic style know as trencadis, to decorate the undulating benches surrounding the huge central pavilion.   We soaked up the sun and delighted in Gaudí's mosaics, marveling over and over again at his imagination and creativity.     

La Pedrera

La Pedrera, the quarry, was the nickname that stuck to Casa Milà, a rough surfaced stone wave of a building. Just down the street from Casa Batlló, for the Milàs it was a matter of keeping up with the Jones in 1912.  La Pedrera was another primary residence with apartments, but this time Gaudí was able to start from scratch.  Underground parking, ventilation shafts, chimneys, light flow, catenary arches and columns were Gaudí 's to create.  And create he did, with flowing, functional organic forms.  We also had tickets to the nighttime rooftop light show, where your imagination could run wild.     George Lucas was said to have visited the roof of La Pedrera before creating the Star Wars storm troopers.  And the dean of his architecture school said, I don't know whether we have graduated a genius or a mad man. Time has surely decided. 

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

Initially we had planned on Barcelona first, then ending in Paris, but I am thankful now that we did the reverse.  To see the Romanesque exhibition at the Catalonian Museum now, after visiting Val de Boí, gave us a special connection - we knew the towns and churches, the art and the restoration, the themes and the history.   Seeing the originals now in full color, in huge spaces set up just like the churches we knew, made this a very intimate experience and connected Val de Boí with the other Catalan valleys of the Pyrenees.     

Sant Joan de Boí - The Stoning of St. Stephen

The Eyes of God

Sant Climent de Taül - Christ in Majesty 

The martydom of St. Quiric 

Santa Maria de Taül - the Epiphany

Sant Eulàlia de Erill - The Descent from the Cross

The majestic Jesus

The suffering Jesus

And some "modern" works too.......

Casa Batlló

Built on the most fashionable street in Barcelona,  Casa Batlló was remodeled by Antonio Gaudí for the Batlló family around 1910 as a primary residence with 14 apartments.  Also referred to as the house of bones, Casa Batlló has a facade decorated with "random" tiles of blue, green, and yellow giving it a sponge painted apprearance with mask-like iron balconies and bone shaped columns. The spine of a dragon undulates across the roof and twists down through the master staircase. Seashapes abound from ceiling fixtures and railings to windows and floor tiles.  Both form and function were important to Gaudí, yet his beautiful colors, flowing lines and shapes from nature were so radical a hundred years ago, that people made fun of his work.  Gaudí died spiritually rich, but financially poor.   Now Barcelona has totally embraced this master of Art Nouveau architecture.