Gaudi On Parade

Though not many days went by where we didn't visit something created by Gaudi, this set is dominated by two big ones: an aborted visit to the park he designed, Park Guell (aborted because Alex was not feeling well and we did not want to wait in the long lines under the blazing sun); and a nice long visit to one of his architectural masterpieces, Casa Mila (also known as La Pedrera, "the quarry").

Also included are some shots taken in the Gothic Quarter, which include more examples of the vast swaths of Barcelona that are pedestrian-only (or at least highly limited to cars); and a couple of shots on the metro, which was generally about 10 to 15 degrees hotter than up on the street, and somewhere around 100% humidity. Thank god the metro cars themselves had air conditioning!

Fun fact about Gaudi's design process: he used catenary arches to support his buildings, which means none needed any internal load-bearing walls (a catenery arch is the curve described by a hanging chain supported under its own weight). And during his design process, instead of drafting on paper, he often hung chains to his specifications and then built models from the reflection of the chains in a mirror. There was an example of this in the attic of Casa Mila, a photo of it is somewhere in the set.

oroboros on 10/3/2015 10:12:08 AM

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