L'Eixample. Catalonia
came into great industrial fortunes at around the same time as passion for
ornamental art nouveaux (or modernismo as it came to be called in Barcelona)
swept Europe. But in order to differentiate itself, Catalan ornament followed
a ceramic approach, drawing from Spain's muslim history. Abstract, geometrical
forms from Andalucia mixed with gothic decoration and the modernist idea
of the "total work of art" to rebel against classical rules of
composition. Gaudi's work best demonstrates Barcelona's individuality within
larger traditions, but other architects such as Lluis Domenech i Montaner
and Salvador Valeri i Pupurull designed some distinctive, flowery buildings.
(Like the Casa Comalat in the above slides.) There are hundreds
of extremely beautiful (or extremely kitsch, depending on your taste...)
wedding cake buildings around the city.
L’Eixample's grid plan is important for its age and its vision:
it is a rationalist plan 150 years old that still allows for growth and
human interaction. City blocks were organized over former farmlands along
a variable
grid from
the top of the old center to expand the city out to its satellite villages.
Ildefons Cerdà i
Sunyer in 1859 began the plan which originally included center gardens (long
before Le C. suggested the same), but only a few of these spaces held out
to the speculation that built up every spare square meter of land since then.
Click here and
here for
images of the block plan in L'Eixample.
The images below are from the lovely Casa Asia, a modernist building converted into the asian house of culture. Its contemporary decor highlights scandinavian lamp design.
