We are back in Barcelona, so we need to talk more about the planning of the city after the Bourbon walls came down. I will provide a bit of a review about conditions for the workers and how their lives should have been improved by the expansion of the city.
The old city, the medieval centre, was surrounded by the Bourbon walls. Life for the textile workers living inside these walls in the nineteenth century was abysmal. They were poorly paid, crammed into basements without light or heat and living spaces averaged 90 square feet per person. The people were ravished by epidemics, malnourishment, toxic fumes from chemicals and poisonous dyes. There was no education and child labour was the norm.
The first modern city plan was Barceloneta, a grid system of streets near the sea. This was also when the Ramblas was created, a wide avenue running from the sea, in a straight line to the NNE, preserving the edge of the medieval city. Today, the Ramblas is a horrid, touristy kitsch of a street.
In the early 1820s, a paved road was constructed from the top of the Ramblas out to the village of Gracia, the Passeig de Gracia. Today the Passeig de Gracia is an upscale street with the highest concentration of Moderniste masterpieces.
The juncture of the Ramblas and Passeig de Gracia was the first breach of the city walls. How to develop the triangle of land that formed between the wall and the barracks was in dispute. The issue was never resolved, the space is the Placa de Catalunya and there is an awkward change from the old city to the new city when crossing this placa.
After the Bourbon walls were finally demolished, Barcelona held a competition for the design of the new city, the Eixample, or widening. The design was awarded to Rovira, who deferred to the old Barcelona. His plan involved extending the axis of the Ramblas to create a new square from which several avenues would fan out, dividing the city into wedges, this emphasized the old city. However, Madrid stepped in and chose the plan of Cerda.
Cerda was a socialist and an engineer, not an architect. Cerda planned a grid system with each block representing a social cross section of people, he envisioned the workers and the wealthy living together with no hierarchy and no desirable or less desirable areas of the new city. None of this came to be, of course. A railway split the area, the property on the right side was more desirable than the property on the left side of the tracks.
Cerda’s plan ignored the long history of Barcelona and shifted focus away from the old city by designing three great avenues to cut through the new city. The block plan was to have a set of 25 blocks with its own school, day care etc. Only 1/3 of each block was to have buildings, the remaining space between apartments was to be patio gardens lined with trees and some blocks were to be left open for public parks. All blocks were to have trees, some on the outside lining the sidewalks and many trees in the space inside the blocks.
Each block would have the corners chamfered at 45 degrees to allow for turning and loading space, the chamfers also opened up the Eixample to more light.
Building of the Eixample began in 1860, by 1870, there was not one building of any interest. A building boom began in the 1870s which resulted in a slum of cell-like apartments for the working class along with the odd opulent building for the wealthy. The public park space never materialized, clean drinking water and proper drainage were non-existent and disease swept the new city, just as it had in the old city.
Cerda’s plan of open space never came to fruition because of the greed of developers and landlords. The internal patio spaces and the treed interiors were lost as the internal spaces were taken up with storage buildings and office space. The ends of the blocks were closed off with multistory buildings and the height of buildings within the blocks were increased or attics were added to the tops.
The result was really a travesty, the Eixample became a monotonous series of fortress-like blocks. The only departure from the plan that was wonderful, were the private streets which cut across some of the blocks, which are lined with charming houses with front gardens.
However, the Eixample is filled with the most amazing and creative Moderniste buildings, they are a total departure from the banal and flourished in the streets of the new city.
I also want to talk about another Moderniste architect, his work is wonderful, we absolutely love it.
Josep Puig i Cadafalch 1867-1956
Puig was very much a traditionalist and deeply Catalan, he argued that good architecture in any country rose from local culture. He also thought that medieval art was the most adaptable to modern structural building technology. Puig liked Gothic architecture of the fifteenth century with its play of stone lines across dramatic voids.
He was a draftsman, he translated graphic effects into the age-old Catalan crafts of iron, tile, wood and brick. His expertise was in surfaces and materials.
Puig, very much the Catalan, did not draw inspiration from Moorish architecture, there was not much Moorish historical architecture in Catalunya, since the Moors were driven out fairly early on. Rather, he drew inspiration from the north, admiring German culture and its industrial drive and Flemish painting, as Catalan High Gothic painting was essentially a local version of Flemish painting.
Casa de la Punxes - The House of Points 1903-1905
This is an oddity in a Mediterranean city. There are four round towers topped with a witch’s hat spire, the main tower has an elaborate lantern. The roof has sharp gables and finials. Plain brick walls break out into High Gothic tribunes and miradors trimmed with ornamental stonework. Sant Jordi and the dragon are carved into the apex of the gable. Critics thought that this house was too Catalanist and politically subversive.
We loved this building and stood around admiring it for a long time, the tourist hoards don't come to see this stunning building as it is not part of the parade of Moderniste buildings on Passeig de Gracia.
Casa Amatller
This was a redesign of an existing house owned by the Amatller family who made their fortune in the chocolate business, the house was designed in 1898 by Puig and completed in 1900. This is a Catalan Gothic palace with a flat wall to the street and a large central courtyard from which a staircase ascends to the main salon on the first floor, much like the fifteenth century palaces in the medieval centre.
The first 2/3 of the wall on the facade is ochre and white stucco, looking more Italian than Catalan, then a Flemish stepped pediment rises, but it is decorated with polychrome tiles in blue, green and pink and is studded with florets. The sheen and twinkle of the wall in the morning sun is said to be astonishing.
Medieval details include the entrance portal depicting Sant Jordi and the dragon. There is a lot going on in the facade if one looks closely. A lot of the decoration refers to the chocolate business as well as Amatller's hobbies, those of photography and reading.
This house really stands out with its sharp angles as it sits next to Gaudi's Casa Batllo with its undulating surface and aquatic blues and greens. We will post some photos of Casa Batllo tomorrow.
Casa Amatller with Flemish stepped gable and ceramics
Sant Jordi fighting the dragon
Window and balcony detail
Critter pouring chocolate
A rat photographer
A donkey reading a book
Pottery pigs
Glass blowing frogs
Letter A intertwined with branches and leaves of an almond tree
The train from Valencia to Barcelona took about three hours, train travel is such a comfortable way to travel, there is plenty of leg room and space. We took an early train, so John headed to the cafe car to get us cafe con leche, we also took snacks along as we didn't have time to eat or drink anything in the morning.
The metro station is very handy to the train station in Barcelona and everything is so well signed that there is no doubt that one is going in the correct direction. Our metro stop is very close to our hotel in Gracia. Gracia is north of the old Barcelona and north of Eixample. It is a really quiet area that is pretty much devoid of tourists.
We dropped our luggage and then walked down to the medieval core to pick up the tea that we forgot when we were here about four weeks ago. Then we checked out Placa Reial and the Boqueria Market. The market was chock full of tourists, the market in Valencia is far better with no tourists, more reasonable prices and better products.
It is great to be back in Barcelona as we really like this city, but it is very busy compared to a month ago. There are just tonnes of people about, lots of tour groups and school groups, it is really jammed. However, Gracia is a calm oasis, so we are glad we decided to stay up here for the last portion of our trip.
We picked up the last of the food supplies we need and are already lamenting the last of our shopping at the fantastic Spanish food stores and markets. The hotel left us a small bottle of really good cava and we stocked up on some more for the next few days.
The rest of this trip will be all about architecture, everybody should be starved for good architecture by now, so get ready for the final onslaught.
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