Episode 16, 06/06/09 – An unintentional tour of Gaudi

Saturday por la manana, we embarked on our excellent tour of Barcelona by first getting breakfast at the local supermarket. Haha, that’s a very necessary thing, you see. I quickly devoured my “donuts” (pronounced “doh-noots”). I should also mention something cool. Hostels are a cool place to make new friends. We met this kid named Nick (not to be confused with our very own golly Caucasian giant, Nick), who had been living in Barcelona for the past 6 weeks. He accompanied our merry troupe and gave directions and suggestions of where to go. First stop, the hospital. (The Hospital? What is it? It’s a big building with patients in it, but that’s not important right now).

We packed up and went to the Hospital de Santa Creu. The hospital was built in the early to mid 1800’s (if my memory serves me) for a purpose that is now defunct. It is now the most pimpingly-awesome real-life working hospital of all time. I’ve enclosed pictures to demonstrate its awesomeness. We saw a few older patients being wheeled around and lots of excellent architecture. Haha, my friends played a cruel/funny trip on me by leading me into the psyche ward and trying to leave me there. Lol. “This is an intervention!” Like that intervention that Michael tried to pull on Meredith in The Office.

After we regained our sanity, we went to the most insanely twisted architecture that exists in Spain. The famous La Sagrada Familia de Barcelona, created by Anton Gaudi. Anton Gaudi was a modernist dude with a imagination like a dark labyrinth. However, his death and lack of funding have halted construction to this day and you can donate funds to keep construction going (estimated completion now is at 2048). I can hardly describe it without getting into complex poetical discoursing. I guess you’ll just have to sit through it for a while.

Sagrada familia is like stepping into a vivid nightmare, combining the sheer awe of the New Testament with things that you don’t like remembering from deep in your subconscious. The inside has elements of neogothic, famous “Gaui arches”, and columns. It’s twisted, warped vision of perspective almost gives it the sense that it defies physics. It’s indescribably fantastic in person and was easily one of my favorite sights of Spain so far. I’ll give just a brief description of my favorite part: the façade of the crucifixion of Christ. Whereas many other facades will contain the standard ole’ Christ crucified with Jesus in somber, almost painless resignation and Mary + others looking on stoically, Gaudi’s designs for the façade show horror in Jesus’ defeated posture and pain that beset Mary and the disciples. The thing I love about the architecture and the sculpture of Sagrada familia is that it depicts emotion without being excessively gaudy. Instead of gaudy, it’s more Gaudi…ha…ha…ha…ha. For example, look at the sculpture of Jesus being betrayed with a kiss by Judas. Note the expressionless look in Judas’ eyes and the silent horror in Jesus’ lips as he knows it will lead to his death. It’s powerful. Never before have I been so emotionally involved with Christ Jesus’ suffering as I have when looking at these magnificent sculptures. I’ve attached pictures so that you can get a better idea of the magnitude of this place.

I could go on for hours about this place, but I think it’s best to move on. We sort of unintentionally did a tour of the greatest hits of Gaudi. He was especially prevalent in Barcelona, so we got to see firsthand his genius while traversing the city. Ironically enough, all of the Gaudi works that we saw in Barcelona we later discussed in detail in our Spanish art class as the paradigm of classic modernism. Cool stuff.

Next was Casa Mila. Another Gaudi classic. It was an apartment building that Gaudi re-designed with his bizarre modernist style and turned it into one of the top attractions in Spain. Now, people don’t live there and it has been converted into a Gaudi museum of sorts. The main attraction of the place is the architecture, obviously, and the incredible terrace. We teleported up to the terrace (no, really) and got to see some of the most excellent views of Barcelona that you can get from the interior city. I’ve again, attached some pictures for reference’s sake.

Next stop, chocolate! The chocolate museum of Barcelona. This tasty museum covered the history of chocolate in Spain, starting from colonization to today. Not only was the museum fun and informative, but also our entrance ticket was made out of chocolate. Needless to say, it didn’t last the entire visit. There was also a lip-smacking amount of chocolate reproductions of famous artwork, the highlight being La Pieta. The only downside to viewing this art was that there were these two annoying kids chasing themselves silly around the museum and screaming. When one of them smacked into a pole, I giggled a little bit and enjoyed the silence. We’re gonna take a bit of a break from blogging at this point because believe it or not, the day is only halfway done. More to come, my chocolaty friends!