June 14: Barcelona - Part 2

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Francesco left for Sicily and I started my adventure on my own at around 11. I bought my ticket to La Sagrada Familia and bought an audio guide with me. Needless to say, Gaudi’s works are all impressive and original and nature was always a big inspiration to him. All the supportive columns inside the Sagrada Familia were to represent trees and forests. Among the many ornate details of the two fronts, one can notice engravings of crawling reptiles. The museum inside the temple showed how Gaudí used to work. He invented the hanging model. A chain or string, resembling arches and columns when inverted, is suspended from two points so that only tension force occurs. Small bags of lead or any other materials in the middle of the string resemble the weight of small building parts. He then used a big mirror to create an inverted or real image of the model.

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I then visited the Casa Mila or “La Pedrera,” another Gaudí’s famous work. Casa Mila was used as an apartment building. The museum part of the building, the Espai Gaudí, is a big hall using arches to support it and not conventional vertical walls that would have occupied more space. There were lots of scaled plasters models with all the details created by Gaudí. His main goal was to create buildings that natural light and wind can enter easily and that all the space is used effectively. I really loved the cozy, low lighting inside the museum and how they had big, seamless screens that showed beautiful shots of Gaudí’s architecture. The lighting was just perfect to enjoy these photos and videos. Leaving the museum I entered the Pis de la Pedrera, a representative apartment to exhibit how people used to live there in the 1900s. This part cannot be described by words so I’ll let photos do the talking.

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I guess I really did take my time in the two places I visited because when I got out of La Pedrera it was already 4:30. The Museu Picaso was on the other side of town and it closed at 8. On the way I stopped by the Casa Batlló to take a photo. Yesterday Francesco took me here and told me the story of this house. It was designed by Gaudí based upon the legend of Saint George killing a dragon. The columns represent the bones of the dragon and the top of the house is the dragon’s back. Another interesting fact is Casa Batlló is located in the famous “Manzana de Discordia,” or the Apple of Discord. Basically the story is there were three neighbor families paying for three distinct designs to see whose house was the best. The other two houses were La Casa Lleó Morena and la Casa Amatller. Unfortunately on the day I came la Casa Amatller had a big blanket on it to be closed for renovation. While I was still walking toward Museo Picaso, I noticed un trixi! I did a small research on traveling to Barcelona for my Spanish class in the spring and I got to this page called trixi.com. Trixi is short for tricycle. For 6 euros per hour, someone will take you around Barcelona on this very cute little car. I think Trixi is more of an independent business than a popular “taxi” brand because I saw only three in the streets and because Francesco didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked him.

Represents a forest
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I arrived at Museu Picaso an hour before it closed. Of course there were lots of his paintings, from his grade school’s age. At some point he turned to drawing abstract, engraving, and creating ceramic works. He recreated 58 versions of Las Meninas, a painting by Diego Veláquez.

I wanted to go out that night but my feet hurt so bad from all the walking I just called it a day then.