Barcelona (Part I)
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain, capital city of Catalonia and the province with the same name. It is located in the comarca of Barcelonès, along the Mediterranean coast between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs. As capital city of Catalonia, Barcelona houses the seat of the Generalitat de Catalunya and its Conselleries, the Parliament of Catalonia and the Supreme Court of Catalonia.
Barcelona is located on the northeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula, facing the Mediterranean sea, in a plateau limited by the mountain range of Collserola, the Llobregat river on the south and the Besòs river on the north. It is 100 miles south of the Pyrenees mountain range. Collserola, part of the coastal mountain range, forms a soft rounded backdrop to the city. The city is peppered with small hills, most of them urbanized and that gave name to the neighborhoods build upon them: Carmel (267 m.), Monterols (121 m.), Putxet (181 m.), Rovira (261 m.) and Peira (133 m.).
The mountain of Montjuïc (173 m.) is situated to the southeast, overlooking the harbor, topped by the Montjuïc castle, a fortress built in the 17-18th centuries to control the city as a replacement for the Ciutadella. Nowadays, the fortress is a museum and the mountain houses former Olympic and cultural venues, as well as some well-known gardens. To the north, the city borders the municipalities of Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Sant Adrià de Besòs; to the south it borders L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and Esplugues de Llobregat; to the east is the Mediterranean; and to the west are Montcada i Reixach and Sant Cugat del Vallès.
Museu Picasso
The Museu Picasso (Picasso Museum) in Barcelona, Spain, has one of the most extensive collections of artworks by the 20th century Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. This is one of the most popular and most visited museum in Barcelona. The museum is housed in five adjoining medieval palaces in Barcelona’s Barri Gotic. There are more than 3,500 works making up the permanent collection of the museum, mostly his early works from when he lived in Barcelona. Picasso arrived in the city in 1894, when his father, an art teacher, had found work teaching in the city art school. Highlights of the collection include two of his first major works, The First Communion(1896), and Science and Charity(1897). In particular, the Museu Picasso reveals Picasso’s relationship with the city of Barcelona, a relationship that was shaped in his youth and adolescence, and continued until his death.
Casa Milà
Casa Milà, better known as La Pedrera (Catalan for ‘The Quarry’), is a building designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí and built in the years 1905–1907. It is located at 92, Passeig de Gràcia (’passeig’ is Catalan for promenade or avenue) in the Eixample district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was built for Roger Segimon de Milà. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Works of Antoni Gaudí”. The building does not have any straight lines. Most people consider it magnificent and overwhelming; some say it is like waves of lava or a sand-dune. This building seems to break our understanding of conventional architecture.
The most astonishing part is the roof with an almost lunar appearance and dreamlike landscape. The building can be considered more of a sculpture than a regular building. Critics remark on its detachment from usefulness, but others consider it to be art. The Barcelonese of the time considered it ugly, hence the “quarry” nickname, but today it is a landmark of Barcelona.
It could be compared with the steep cliff walls in which African tribes build their cave-like dwellings. The wavy facade, with its large pores, reminds one also of an undulating beach of fine sand, formed, for example, by a receding dune. The honeycombs made by industrious bees might also spring to the mind of the observer viewing the snake-like ups-and-downs that run through the whole building.
Casa Batlló
Casa Batlló is a building designed by Antoni Gaudi and built in years 1905–1907; located at 43, Passeig de Gràcia (passeig is Catalan for promenade or avenue), part of the Illa de la Discòrdia in the Eixample district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The local name for the building is Casa dels ossos (house of bones), and indeed it does have a visceral, skeletal organic quality. It was originally designed for a middle-class family and situated in a prosperous district of Barcelona. The building looks very remarkable — like everything Gaudi designed, only identifiable as Modernisme or Art Nouveau in the broadest sense. The ground floor, in particular, is rather astonishing with tracery, irregular oval windows and flowing sculpted stone work.
