Alternative Twelve Treasures of Spain – Antoni Gaudi

“Those who look for the laws of Nature as a support for their new works collaborate with the creator.” –  Antoni Gaudi

The “Twelve Treasures of the Kingdom of Spain“…

… was a contest/poll that was conducted by the Spanish Television Company Antena 3 and the radio broadcaster Cope. The final results were announced on 31^st December 2007.  I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the eight out of the twelve that I have visited and having completed that I thought I might come up with a personal alternative twelve.

The Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi has a rightful place in the official list for his unfinished cathedral the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona but I make no apologies for including him again at number eight in my alternative Top Twelve  Treasures but this time highlighting some of his other work and most of all my personal favourite the Casa Batlló.

I visited Barcelona in 2005 before I had really heard about or fully appreciated the architecture of Antoni Gaudi so this place came as a real surprise.

I had already visited the Park Guell, an imaginative but unfinished garden city and on a second sightseeing day I was walking along the Passeig de Gràcia in the Eixample district of Barcelona and heading for the Casa Milà when across the street I saw the most amazing building that I have ever seen that turned out to be the Casa Batlló, recently restored as a museum and open to the public.

Casa Batlló, Barcelona…

Antoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet was a Catalan architect who belonged to the Modernist Art Nouveau movement and was famous for his unique style and highly individualistic designs.  He designed Casa Batlló, in a prosperous middle class district of Barcelona, for a wealthy city Aristocrat who was carrying out a refurbishment of the property that had originally been built in 1877.  The lower levels of the house were designed for the owner and the upper floors were for renting and the refurbishment took place between 1905 and 1907.

Casa Batlló is a unique and fabulous building that defies any sort of description and is a building that has to be seen to be fully appreciated.  From the road outside the building looks stunning and the local name for the building is Casa dels ossos, literally the House of bones and the building has a visceral, skeletal organic quality.  Much of the façade is decorated with a mosaic made of broken ceramic tiles that begins in shades of golden orange and moves and merges harmoniously into greenish blues.

It is a wonderful riot of style and outrageous architectural ideas and designs and stepping inside is like being given the privilege of sharing the inside of the mind of a genius.  Every room is a treasure and the attention to detail is immaculate.  The ground floor, in particular, is rather astonishing with tracery, irregular oval windows and flowing sculpted stone work.  It seems that Gaudi’s objective was to avoid straight lines completely.

My favourite part of the building was the roof with its forest of coloured chimneys decorating a terrace which is arched and is likened by students of Gaudi to the backbone of a dragon.  A common theory about the building is that the rounded feature to the left of centre, terminating at the top in a turret and cross, represents the sword of Saint George the patron saint of Catalonia, which has been plunged into the back of the dragon.

Antoni Gaudi, Architect and Eccentric…

Like a lot of artistic people Gaudi tended towards eccentricity and because of his ragged attire and empty pockets, many cab drivers refused to pick him up as he walked about the city for fear that he would be unable to pay the fare.

On 7^th June 1926 Gaudi was run over by a tram and because no one recognised him he was taken to a pauper’s hospital.  His friends found him the next day but when they tried to move him into a better hospital, Gaudi refused, reportedly saying “I belong here among the poor.”  He died three days later on 10^th June and was buried in the midst of his Cathedral, La Sagrada Família which even now remains unfinished and is due for completion in 2026, one hundred years after his death.

More posts about Antoni Gaudi:

Catalonia, Barcelona and Antoni Gaudi

Twelve Treasures of Spain, La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

Cantabria, Comillas and Antoni Gaudi

Casa Batlló, Barcelona

Park Guell, Barcelona

Click on any picture in the gallery to enter the slideshow…