Casa Batllo

The first Gaudi building that I've gotten the grand tour of...

There's beautiful stained glass throughout the building and especially in the windows that look out onto Passeig de Gracia.

Gaudi changed the tone of the tiles in the light well in the middle of the mansion so that it would appear to be one color when it was sunny out becasue of the bleaching action of the sun acting against the changing color of the tile.

The mansion is realy about bringing light and air into the building naturaly. He made it so that your laundry could dry within the laundry rooms and you wouldn't have to hang your laundry outside with these vents

Gaudi's genius is apparent not only in his artistic expressions but also his structural and mathematic knowledge. He used parabolic arches to support his structures which he was pretty much the first to explore.


Even though this building over 100 years old, it feels extremely modern.

The Palau de Musica and ex-Archies

The beautiful sunset from our apartment.

Crepes a Barcelona before seeing Moonwians

Udon after seeing Moonwians

Jessie and Amanda admiring the Palau



In the Palau

Viva Inspiration!

I've allways loved Gaudi's architecture for so many reasons, but my greatest respect for him came from learning that he was fighting the man through architecture.

Cece, one of our teachers, took us on a firm tour to OAB which is run by Carlos Ferrater. His son gave us a lecture on some of their work but included historical information about Barcelona in his presentation. Ferrater has been asked by the ex-mayor of Barcelona to essentially be the next Gaudi and create the Casa Mila of the 21st century, also on Pasea de Gracia.

The design of the facade for the new building is based off of the same principals that led Gaudi to design the unjulating facade of Casa Mila. In Gaudi's time there were lots restrictions on how much facades could pertrude and set back, they were supposed to be essentialy flat with small balconies. Gaudi tricked the strict code by creating a facade with elements that no one had ever seen before. He completely pushed the boundaries and was able to get his design accepted because it technically fit into code but not by the code's intention.

Ferrater also creates a dynamic facade in his new project, that is currently under construction, in the true spirit of Gaudi.

The new design even relates back to the courtyards in Casa Mila, although Casa Mila has two of them and the new building only has one.

So now I love Gaudi and Ferrater. The photos are from his website. http://www.ferrater.com/

Weird connection between Walt Disney and Barcelona

This is a weird theory of mine that has absolutely no factual bases, so don't read allot into it.

It all started when I was doing research for our last studio project on La Parc de la Ciutadella here in Barcelona and noticed that there is a monument to Walt Disney in a corner of the park, which for the most part only has monuments to mayors, generals and other important people to the history of the city.
Perhaps it is because I grew up watching the Little Mermaid, but The Sagrada Familia has always reminded me of Tritan's Palace that the Little Mermaid lives in.

I don't know if it is because both include organic curves and structural systems that seam impossible, but the two have always shared some magical quality to me.

The same is true about the Cathedral on the top of Mount Tibidabo. From the first night we were in our apartment we were calling it Cinderella's Castle because we can see it from our balconies and windows lit up majestically at night on the top of the mountain. Over Spring break we finally made it up to the Cathedral, which during the day and up close doesn't look like much. It's definitely not the best Cathedral in Barcelona, but it too has magical qualities.


So maybe these are just the architectural observations of someone who never grew up, but who would want to do that. I want to stay an undergrad in Barcelona forever.

Spring Break

Spring Break was muy excelente.

Jose got to come visit, which was very exciting and we were planning on going to visit his abuelo in western spain but the night before we were going to leave his father called us to say that his grandpa was in the hospital so we should cancel our tickets so that we wouldn't be a burden. So things didn't work out but we still had a blast. Of course I made him sit there and play while I sketched and made him to do tourist stuff.

If you ever have a stale bagguet I would suggest taking it down to the port and seing the gulls and huge fish attack. Muy interesante.

The sculpture of Jesus on the new side of the Sagrada Familia is realy different because he is actually hanging from a cross pertruding horizontally from the front of the building.

Irene's awesome parents felt bad that jose and I's trip got cancelled so they adopted us for a couple days and took us on a cava tour through the Freixenet winery in Sant Sadurni d'Anoia. We learned how Cava is made and all about the different kinds and got to taste the Cava Brut.

It's pretty interesting how they build entire walls out of Cava bottles as the bricks and wood poles as the mortar and they've been building them this way for centuries. I'll have to diagram how they build the walls of bottles for aging.

After that we went back to their deserted beach town where we got to go swimming indoors and freeze when we tried to walk along the Mediteranian.


On the way back to spain we stopped in Taragona to see some of the oldest Roman ruins in Spain. We saw the old ampatheter and part of the aquaduct on our short stay.

When we got even closer to Barcelona we got lost a few times, but eventually made our way to mount Tibidabo because that has been a goal of Irene's and mine since we got to Barcelona. While we were lost we saw multiple cars with people either having sex or doing other public acts of intimacy.

We didn't get to go to the top of the Cathedral to touch the feet of Jesus because we got there too late after being lost, but we still had great views of Barcelona from the ground. The mountains surrounding Barcelona all provide excellent views of the city but this one was particullarly great because the mountain is the tallest in the area and you can actually see the city grid.

I've been trying to study public spaces with street performers but after learning how the whole system works I'm not sure how inspiring it is anymore, it lost some of its romance. Barcelona has a sophisticated system of deciding what spaces street performers can use for their performances. There are actually designated spaces with markers set up by the government where you can perform and a list that you have to sign up on to have the right to use the space at a certain time to perform in.

Even though the system has detracted from the organicness of the study, there still is the human factor and the difference in the experience that is effected by people that pass by and join in the performance. This picture is of the people who joined in and danced to an older singer who was singing traditional Spanish music in front of the Dali Museum.

I ran into the group that originally inspired me to document the spaces used by street performers a few times over spring break. Their CD is called Mariatchi Boogie and I bought a copy to support them, which of course dosen't include any of the crowd pleasers because those are all covers. I think their names are in the cover, but I'm not sure if I understand it correctly but perhaps they are Manu Chao, Aitzi y los lokos de la calle Codols. The first couple time you hear them sing "No Woman No Cry" or "Olle Como Va" you feel like you found something special and you were lucky to have stumbled upon this group at the exact time they decided to play the song that you've loved for years. But when you walk by them once and walk by again a half hour later and they are playing the same song that you heard you are dissilusioned.

I saw the group down in Port Vuel and again in Plaza Cataluna and was told they also perform at the end of Las Ramblas, so it is clear that they allways go for big spaces where a crowd can form that is frequented by both tourists and locals. Actualy I heard their CD playing when I walked by a small store in Raval a few nights ago. So the locals support them but the tourists are how they earn a living of course.
By watching the same group perform in different spaces you are able to compare how the different spaces, the people that group around the performance and the mood of the musicians all fead off of one another.

(videos coming soon)