Gaudi’s famous architecture and some influences in the street

La Pedrera

Some buildings of the city of Barcelona were constructed in an very particular way of architeture known as Modernist Style.

Antonio Gaudì made this apartment building between 1906 and 1910 called Casa Milà or La Pedrera.

It´s said that the intelectual people by that time ridicularized and attacked him. One hundred years after that, millions of people come here to visit this same building.

The round shapes and curves are really impressive: it gives a sense of organic and irregular construction, as nature.

La Pedrera - detail - the iron balcony were made by Josep Maria Jujol

The sense of beauty of that building is neverending fountain of inspiration.

                                                     La Pedrera – front balcony

One of the doors Circles and round shapes are everywhere....Floor of a building

Fontana’s subway station

CASA    BARTLO

SCIENCE FICTION is nowadays a really big TREND, as we can the some Fashion Designers exploring it, like Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan, and lot of films and writing that are produced.

The genius people are always in front of their times, and 100 years ago, Antonio Gaudi was really into science fiction influences that come from literature.

Inspired by Jule Verne’s “20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, this building belonged to a rich family in the main street of the city, where were the best archicteture examples ever done by that time.

When we get inside, the building’s door and windows refes to ships and submarine style:

Gaudi cares about each details…

… and explored the mixture of different materials…

He really knew how to create round and unusual shapes, and make the archictecture work for the men… This is the hall to the laundry on the last floor of the building: the opening areas allow permanent natural light and ventilation.

So we get to the roof: the front of the building is a dragon, and here we have the external part of its body:

The scales os Gaudi and the scales in the Barcelona’s lamp-post:

Other influence of his style:

Gate by Gaudi from the Casa Vicens, exposed in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya:

Surrealism is everywhere around….

Spain is full of Surrealism and Dada events: in Bilbao, at the Guggenheim Museum, you can see an extraordinary exibition called “Surreal Things”, that was at Tate Modern, London, the first exposition about Design and Surrealism; at Barcelona, another exposition that was also in  London about Picabia, Man Ray and Duchamp. At the CCCB, also here, they have this Ballard exibition, a writer that was completely influenced by the surrealism concepts and works.

FANTASIES and SURREAL THINGS inspire people in differents ways.. Since the windows form the cheapes products till every kinds os commerce, I could find differents  examples:

Windows

Windows

 

Barcelona – first week, july 2008

Arc de Trionf

First day in Barcelona: I´m staying one mounth in the borough of Arc de Triomf.

The reason  I´m here is to make a course of Cool Hunting and Fashion Trends. In the very first class, we were taught to make this kind of journal, selecting photos and walking exaustly on the streets, looking to interesting things and people.

So, let´s go to work!

This was the first photo I made. Although it´s not a good photo, I loved the dolphing. Unfortunately, there´s a reflecion in the glass… This place is almost just in front of the school, at calle Torrent D`Olla.

null

The temperature is really high, we are in summer, but what call my attenttion first was some windows refleting spring time. We went down the street Torrent for a walk with the students of the same course. and in the windowas there were COLOURS and FLOWERS everywhere:

null