Barcelona
October 23, 2014
We have come to Spain for a two week journey. We have been here before, many times. This time is a bit special as it comes near the end of a challenging year. Here are a few words about what we are up to.
It is a challenge to write about Barcelona. I find it intensely stimulating. In it's food, language, music, clothing, architecture, it is vivid, it takes a stand, it is not middle of the road. The phrase, less is more, does not apply here.
Wes rented for us a neat as a pin, second floor, one bedroom apartment in the neighborhood called the Eixample. That is pronounced: Ay-jahm-pluh. The Eixample is the part of Barcelona that underwent urban renovation around the Eighteen-Eighties. Many buildings were demolished. Many were renovated in the new style of Modernisma. Modernisma was Barcelona's distinctive interpretation of Art Nouveau. Most of the world knows of Modernisma through the buildings of Antonio Gaudi. His Sagrada Familia Cathedral, almost done—due to be completed in Twenty-Twenty-Six—has been under construction for one hundred and twenty years. But, and it is a big but, Gaudi was not alone, he may be the most famous, but there were many architects creating extra-ordinary buildings and our neighborhood, the Eixample was the site of most of them.
Most of the buildings are four or five floors. At every intersection they cut the tips of the street corners to make graceful diagonals. And they inserted leafy shady promenades down the center of the avenues. The promenades have benchs and cafés. The facades of the buildings are beyond ornate. Chiseled from blocks of stone in wavy, curvy, undulating shapes. There are tiles and ceramic ornaments and beautiful glass work. Carved wood and shapely iron frame the doors and windows. Mr. Tiffany, the lamp maker, would have fit right in. One just has to imagine the most beautiful Tiffany lamp enlarged into a grand town house or a concert hall or a cathedral or a park. There is also older stuff in our neighborhood, the Universitat de Barcelona, down the street turns five hundred and sixty four years old on November third.
Wes and Marlow
Barcelona
October 23, 2014
October 23, 2014
We have come to Spain for a two week journey. We have been here before, many times. This time is a bit special as it comes near the end of a challenging year. Here are a few words about what we are up to.
It is a challenge to write about Barcelona. I find it intensely stimulating. In it's food, language, music, clothing, architecture, it is vivid, it takes a stand, it is not middle of the road. The phrase, less is more, does not apply here.
Wes rented for us a neat as a pin, second floor, one bedroom apartment in the neighborhood called the Eixample. That is pronounced: Ay-jahm-pluh. The Eixample is the part of Barcelona that underwent urban renovation around the Eighteen-Eighties. Many buildings were demolished. Many were renovated in the new style of Modernisma. Modernisma was Barcelona's distinctive interpretation of Art Nouveau. Most of the world knows of Modernisma through the buildings of Antonio Gaudi. His Sagrada Familia Cathedral, almost done—due to be completed in Twenty-Twenty-Six—has been under construction for one hundred and twenty years. But, and it is a big but, Gaudi was not alone, he may be the most famous, but there were many architects creating extra-ordinary buildings and our neighborhood, the Eixample was the site of most of them.
Most of the buildings are four or five floors. At every intersection they cut the tips of the street corners to make graceful diagonals. And they inserted leafy shady promenades down the center of the avenues. The promenades have benchs and cafés. The facades of the buildings are beyond ornate. Chiseled from blocks of stone in wavy, curvy, undulating shapes. There are tiles and ceramic ornaments and beautiful glass work. Carved wood and shapely iron frame the doors and windows. Mr. Tiffany, the lamp maker, would have fit right in. One just has to imagine the most beautiful Tiffany lamp enlarged into a grand town house or a concert hall or a cathedral or a park. There is also older stuff in our neighborhood, the Universitat de Barcelona, down the street turns five hundred and sixty four years old on November third.
Wes and Marlow
Barcelona
October 23, 2014
 |
| Barcelona as we approached by air. |
 |
| We love french doors, and of course our apartment has two sets! |
 |
| Second story with small balcony overlooking Carrer Enric Granados |
 |
| Carrer Enric Granados between Calle Majorca and Calle Valencia |
 |
| Our building - apartment is on the 2nd floor |
No comments:
Post a Comment