Archive for 03/03/2013
‘Park Guell is one of the most impressive public parks in the world. The park is located in Barcelona and was designed by famous architect Antonio Gaudi.
Gaudi planned and directed the construction of the park from 1900 to 1914 for Eusebi Guell for a residential park intended for sixty single- family residences. The project, however, was unsuccessful and the park became city property in 1923. Though never fully completed, it still remains one of Gaudi’s most colorful and playful works.
Park Guell, intended to serve Guell’s private city, became all of Barcelona’s, then the world’s favourite. Gaudi let loose his imagination.
While for houses he drew on natural forms, here he shaped nature into colonnades, archways and covered galleries with well-camouflaged artificial structures.
It’s a playground for the mind: visual jokes, like columns that simulate palm-tree trunks, rubble-surfaced arches that grow out of the ground, quilts of ceramic tiles. A graceful gazebo is made of twisted angle iron – cheap to make, looks good, does not lie about its material yet its shape is as softly curved as climbing vines.’ (Park Guell website)