Gaudi is the big draw, every tourist who has never considered architecture knows the name. A gazillion tourists flood Barcelona and visit Gaudi’s work.
Born to a family of metalworkers in Reus on the lower plains west of Tarragona, Gaudi was extremely curious about nature: plants, animals, birds, bugs, geology and the weather. He believed that the Mediterranean basin was optimal for works of art because the light falls at 45 degrees and illuminates objects perfectly so that we can see them without distortion.
Gaudi learned by intently observing nature that everything structural or ornamental that an architect could imagine was already there in nature. Although nature produces beautiful and decorative forms, this is not the intent, nature is about structure and function, elements that support the growth and reproduction of the species. By looking for function, one arrives at beauty.
The tools of architecture are the compass and the square, these tools give us circles, triangles, squares and rectangles. In three dimensions, the shapes are cylinders, prisms, pyramids, cubes and spheres. Pillars, columns, planes and cupolas can be constructed from these shapes. These shapes do not exist in nature. Natural forms consist of fibres, the curved surfaces are supported by fibres and are structurally efficient. Think about your femur (thigh bone) the longest, strongest and heaviest bone in the body, it is not a cylinder, the neck of the femur is almost a hyperboloid. Helicoidals are the shoots growing off branches and hyperbolic-paraboloids are the webs between our fingers. Keep these natural forms in mind when you look at our photos of Gaudi’s work.
Gaudi’s creations could not be imagined from flat drawings, his surfaces twist and undulate, space flares and inflates and collapses. He made the forms he wanted with the use of models. He also used traditional techniques, such as the Catalan vault, the slender vault formed by using two to three layers of bricks joined with mortar at the small faces.
Colonia Guell
This was a day for those who love brick, we are those people. Our house is faced with brick but after seeing the work of these master brick layers, our brick is pretty plain. The brick work in Colonia Guell is absolutely stunning, we got so much more than we expected out of this visit.
We started out by walking a long way to Placa d'Espanya to catch a metro type train to Colonia Guell, not far from the city. We deciphered the train map and time schedule and then purchased our tickets from a ticket machine, then we headed down to catch the train. The train travels underground until it leaves the city. Thankfully, there are footprints painted in blue from the train station to the interpretation centre at Colonia Guell or we would never have found it.
John and I did the walking tour around the village and we were completely stunned by the designs in brick. We just could not believe the buildings we were seeing, it just never ended.
Guell was a wealthy industrialist who saw some of Gaudi’s work while in Paris, on arriving back in Barcelona, he found Gaudi and commissioned him to design several Guell projects, they also became lifelong friends.
The Guell Colony was founded by Guell in 1890, he wanted to get his textile workers out of Barcelona as it was a city of tension and conflict between the workers and the industrialists. The colony consisted of the factory and the housing area which also included a school for boys, a theatre, a convent which educated girls but mainly for work in the factory, a company doctor, cellars of the cooperative and a consumption cooperative. He commissioned Gaudi to design the church.
Click on photos to enlarge...
Ca L'Ordal: Three families that worked the land to provide food for the workers, lived in this house
Design detail in brick is astonishing
The School Master's House, complete with bridge to the school
Ca L'Espinal House - The Colonia Guell Manager's House
This was our favourite, we stood on the street and freaked out over this one
Doctor's House
More wonderful brick
Cloth Drying Building
Colonia Guell Crypt
I think that most people come to Colonia Guell to see Gaudi’s crypt, rather than the brick buildings in the town. We timed everything just right as a tourist group and a huge group of school kids came while we were ready to leave. Gaudi had a grand design for a church, but only the crypt was built.
The crypt has been deemed to be one of the greatest architectural spaces in Europe. Gaudi designed it from the roof down, it is a complex web of polygons, hardly a right angle exists in the design. He drew out the ground plan and then hung strings from each point on the plan where a column would stand and transmit the thrust of the building into the foundation. He then used cross strings to simulate the arches and vaults. From each string he hung a tiny bag of bird shot which was weighed to mimic the load on each column, arch and vault. Gaudi then took a photo of the model from all angles and then turned the photos upside down. Upside down, the tension on the strings became compression, he could then measure the compound angles and build the proper scaffolding and forms.
Gaudi was evoking caves of the Catalan past in this design, something archaic, something visceral. It was an amazing feat of engineering, pushing well beyond methods of the time, but built by traditional masons using brick and stone, without steel reinforcement; the materials and methods used since the thirteenth century.
The main columns are rough black basalt, roughly hexagonal, taken from a quarry, unworked. The columns lean against the thrust of the roof, they suggest pillars of volcanic earth, the culture of refuge, of Old Catalunya in the hidden valleys of the Pyrenees.
The brick vaults and wall surfaces are hyperbolic paraboloids (the webs between your fingers) this is the first appearance of this shape in Gaudi’s designs. These shapes are built using traditional means, shallow Catalan vaulting and diaphragm ribs, back to Gothic structure, the building appears ancient but severely deformed.
Space flows, expands and contracts and winds around the leaning walls. It really is incredible, the heavy influence of nature is all there. I think kids would like the feel of the space, it feels safe and cave-like, this sensation begins in the porch, before one even gets inside. I read that the crypt makes you feel like you are in the belly of a brick whale, I agree with that.
After catching the train back to Barcelona, we decided to walk a different route, got lost among the angled streets and then found our way home once we got to a busier main street that we recognized. We walked a lot today and then walked to a concert tonight, but we will blog about that tomorrow.
The Porch
The Portal with ceramic symbolism above the lintel
Spinning tips from the textile factory are used to decorate the windows
Bell Tower
Central nave with leaning basalt columns and the incredible brick vaults
Interior view of stained glass window, spinning tips are on the outside
No straight lines, very much like nature
Columns almost look alive, the space is dynamic rather than static
John loved this S curve
The skill of the brick craftsmen is something to behold
You've convinced me that I have to get my ass to Spain! Those teardrop windows and the curves and the brick, omg!
ReplyDeleteYou would love Spain. Gaudi was brilliant, more of his work to come when we get back to Barcelona.
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