We took a time warp back to the late 1800´s today and viewed Antonio Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia Church and Casa Mila Apartments after strolling along the grid of octagonal intersection streets full of original 1800’s facades. Derrell should have pulled out a top hat, buttoned jacket and cane for the stroll.
Gaudi had one wavy, curvy set of architectural plans in his head. The half of the cathedral that was finished has wonderful branching pillars, the other half is a complex Legos set. It spooked me to look up considering the amount of stone that was overhead, although it definitely evoked the tree canopy reaching into heaven feeling he had as a goal. They figure they’ll have the church complete in about 50 years. So finally after seeing so many churches and being in awe of the construction required to build such beasts, we were able to walk through an intimidatingly complex work-in-progress and see the advancement from hand drawings with calculations to computer generated CAD drawings that recheck the original weight bearing estimates. Cool.
The apartment complex that we wandered through was an organic structure with no straight lines. It sort of rolls, grows and boils out and around you. Art Nouveau in all its sumptuous glory. It really must have been an optimistic time those decades. Electricity, phones, hot running water, gas stoves, typewriters, refrigerators, photography, cinema, automobiles, trams, street lighting… all being invented, announced and rolled out into your own neighborhood.
Okay, so they didn’t have air conditioning yet. We’ll stick with this decade. We are finally returning to normal operating temperatures. The weather heated up a bit. So, when we missed finding a spot to stroll in the shade, we turned into a puddle. To just think… having to live in an era without a proliferation of Haagen-Das, Ben & Jerry’s and gelato cafes along the prominades… it actually must have been rather primitive time… optimism, bah!… gelato, woo-hoo!
