Barcelona

Adele and Iris have this week off from school, so we met up with Matt's brother and niece in Barcelona.


Matt and Ted at a beach just outside Barcelona.

Iris, cousin Alexia and Adele, posing somewhat reluctantly on the tortoise at the Aquarium.

Alexia and Iris posing much more enthusiastically as shark victims.

We also made plans to see my cousin Michelle and family in southern France, so we had just two full days to look about. Mostly enough time to figure out what we want to come back to see.

I will start with the very least impressive part of our Barcelona experience: our apartment.
Barcelona is known as a destination for young people of all nationalities to come to party. Matt and I should have kept that fact more firmly in mind when we made what turned out not to be one of our more brilliant internet reservations. We thought we were getting a good, cheap deal. Only cheap as it turned out: saturated in cigarette smoke, with just two windows that recieved light, and those in the bedrooms. It was described as "architect designed". Maybe they meant this one-of-a-kind light fixture, made from the the bottom of a plastic jug, with painted sponges hanging on ropes?

Or the kitchen table that was a narrow, panelled door, painted a glossy, bright red?

A sign on the door warned us that we would be fined by the police if we make noise after 11:00, and another by the stove implored us to not throw garbage out the window. That sort of place.

But no matter, we came to enjoy our relatives and the city.

The most impressive part of Barcelona, in my opinion, is Antoni Gaudi. His cathedral, the Sagrada Familia is fascinating in its uniqueness.

It is a strange combination of modern and medieval, and just dripping with symbolic imagery.
The towers are all ready massive, yet his original plan calls for a even bigger building

There are plans to complete it by 2026.

Sadly, we were only there for the weekend, and the lines to get inside were just too long. Here is an image of the interior which I did not get to see.

I was also thwarted by long lines from going into another of his buildings,the Casa Mila.

And look at this interior!

Blast those long lines!

Gaudi was just as iconoclastic and bizarre as his art work. As an student of architecture, he was not distinguished and even failed some courses, but he had his supporters among the faculty. According to Wikipedia, when handing him his diploma, the director of the school said, "We have given this academic title to either a fool or a genius, only time will tell."

As well as architecture, he studied iron working, ceramics, glass making and carpentry. He could actually execute the work that he designed and he worked closely with the crafts people who carried it out. The most stupendous example of his ceramic work we were able to get into, as you just walk in with the rest of the crowd. The Park Guell.

This is the sort of image that I had seen of the parc. The incredible benches. Gaudi developed and perfected this technique of covering large surfaces with broken ceramic. He made the overall design and oversaw the making, molding and painting of the ceramic pieces.

When we were there, it was actually hard to get a good glimpse of the ceramics because of all the people.

The Parc is much more than the benches, and it has a wonderful view of the city and the Mediteranean.

Below the square with the benches are many collums and balconies. In the middle of this staircase are several lizards.

Gaudi's work is imbued with symbology, often quite obscure. These forms refer to the trunks and legs of elephants, which held significance for him, and to waves rolling back at the parting of the Red Sea.

MARLOWE, these are for you. A few examples of ceramic designs in the Parc

Gaudi became increasingly religious and reclusive as he aged. He also became a vegan and was given to fasting. At the end of his life, though plied with offers, he refused all commissions so that he could devote himself to the cathedral, though it was a struggle to raise money for it.

 But, enough about Gaudi. 

I felt I understood Madrid better by seeing it in comparison to Barcelona. You may know that many in Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital, have aspriations to be independent. Barcelona certainly feels like it could be a capital to rival Madrid.

It gets more sun and it is designed to soak it up, with wide streets and many large squares. There are more wide boulevards with people strolling along, shopping or just enjoying the sites, the stores, the fountains, the museums. Compared to Madrid, Barcelona is definitely the more charismatic sibling: handsome, gregarious, basking in the sun and welcoming others to join in.

The view from the Catalonian National Museum.

Madrid's location was chosen purely on the basis of being the power base of the Iberian peninsula, equidistant from every coast. The weather is pleasant enough when you arrive from the sweltering humidity, or the freezing depths of New England's summer and winter, but by most standards, and certainly those of Spain, Madrid actually has lousy weather, with many cold, cloudy days, and punishingly hot ones in the summer. The surrounding landscape has little to recommend it, being semi-desert but quite flat and without the dramatic colors or formations that you find in the desserts of New Mexico and Arizona.
I am sounding terribly uncharitable toward my adopted city. I should mention that I love Madrid. It is a great place to live or to visit, but it has to be tough having such a charasmatic sibling.

Madrid has expended a lot of energy over the centuries pursuading the rest of Spain of its importance.  The statues are a good example the cities' characters. The statues in Madrid usually have a clear political motive, glorifying whatever regime was in power or whatever history they considered to legitimize them. The one just below our apartment is a great (or terrible) example. Queen Isabel II is looking smug while a peasant woman offers her flowers and a minor noble beseaches the onlookers to wonder at her greatness.

Horrible statues, not even well executed!

In Barcelona, the statues glorify art, not politicians. I don't think there is anything in Madrid to rival the statues at the Catalonian National Museum.

I don't actually know if it was meant to have this effect, but The Museum of Catalonian Art looks like a palace:

But once again, I was not able to go in. The museum had just closed when I got there!

Oh well, happily, for now, we live just 5-6 hours away.


Hasta Luego! Margot

Madrid Street Art

So, I have been talking about going in search of good graffiti in Madrid. I am going to adopt the more current term of "street art" instead. I don't want to give the impression that I am promoting, or really the least interested in, this sort of "tagging", which is far more prevelant and more widely known as graffiti: 

I consider this sort of sprayed image to be the human equivilant of peeing on a wall. It claims territory in quite an unappealing manner. Too bad it lasts longer than pee.

In Madrid, the prevelance of graffiti has led to more street art, because many shop owners, to protect themselves from random paint jobs, have hired artists to paint the area around the shop windows, and security doors. (*Thanks to my mother, the indefatigable research librarian, working from Massachusetts, for this info)

You can see here that they have worked hard to remove the graffiti between the doors. But the paintings are usually respected and left untagged.

A few weeks ago, I was walking in a part of the city I had not been to before. About 15 minutes from our apartment, north of Plaza Espana. I came to an area with quite a lot of street art. I like this one of a TV set gone wrong:

I am pretty sure this one, below, was comissioned, but it uses current and common graffiti images to make a nice design.

 The term "street art saffari" has become a bit cliche, but it is so apt.  As soon as I saw the first painting, I took out my camera. When I saw a few more, I knew I had come a cross a sort of street art watering hole. I put off getting to my original destination and hunted about.

This painting, below, staring down an obscure little street was quite a surprise. It was clearly a professional job, whether done for commision or during the night.

 The signature is boamistura, which will lead you to the guy's website. I still don't get a lot of this. Was this done with permission? If not, surely the artist would not want to be so obvious. But you can see on line many websites of unauthorized art whose originators are well known.

As I continued walking I came to a street that had a wonderful ambiance, Calle Noviciado. On this one block, there are lots of stores with paintings around them.

 I can't remember which store it was, the one above or below here, that I was so excited to find. It is a second hand clothing shop, rare in Madrid. I had to go in. I had soon found a couple of items that I wanted.  But it turned out, I had to have clothes to exchange them for. You can't get anything with cash!

Further on, I came across this shop that is sort of a Spanish version of Newburry Comics.

 I liked these two security doors for bar/cafes. The one above is quite straight ahead. The one below is a little mystifying. Could it be the guy who cleans the place, pretending to be the evening entertainment?

 Below is the one thing I have included here that was definately a "night job". But personally, I like this eye staring at me from what would be a bland metal wall in front of a construction job.

 Libreria is not a library, but a bookstore.

That is all for now. Hasta Luego!

Comments, questions, random observations. Send me a note: margotkimball@gmail.com