Modernism Tour #1/ Saturday 1-19-08

On Saturday, the whole GSE group took our first modernism tour. We met outside of the Hospital de Sant Pau metro exit. Beforehand, us Nacion girls went to our café to have some café con leche before the tour. Because this always takes longer than expected, we were about 15 minutes late to our tour. We were worried that we were going to be left behind, but once we got there we saw that we were one of the only ones there! Apparently everybody else also had trouble getting there on time.

Our first stop on our modernism tour was the Hospital de Sant Pau. Us UAB students had already seen some of it, because the UAB campus that we go to is housed in an old building of the hospital. Yet everytime I see the hospital, it is amazing. The architecture is so intricate. Jordan, our GSE tourgide/director, gave us the whole history on modernism. It became popular in the early 20th century (hence modern) and was much more than architecture. It was painting and art as well, but the architecture is on the largest scale, so most people remember it for that. It emphasizes nature, so many of the mosaics are of flowers and plants. Also, because of the nature influence, the materials used tended to be more natural.

The Hospital was built in 1905 (and finished around 1910), and funded by a guy named Pau. The other hospital in Barcelona was in the center of the city, which wasn’t a good idea since all the sick people were together in one place in the center of the city, spreading their disease. So they built this hospital on the outskirts of the city, with about 10 different buildings, each for a different type of illness. The hospital also has a lot of open spaces and courtyards. All the patient rooms were above ground, because they believed that if you were sick in beautiful surroundings with lots of sunlight, you would get better quicker. And I definitely believe it! If I were sick, I would love to go there because it is so beautiful. In addition, each building had an underground tunnel leading to the ICU and surgery unit so it would be easy to transport people if they needed urgent care. Tiny little details were added like planting fruit trees and aromatic herbs to make the hospital smell nice. All this details made this place gorgeous and truly modernist.

After the Hospital, we headed down to the Sagrada Familia. The most awe-inspiring church you will ever see. I know I say a lot about how beautiful everything is, but seriously I am not exaggerating on this one. It is still under construction, being only 40% complete. Building started in the 1800s, started by an unfamous architect. He only did one small side of the church, and then Gaudi came in to finish it. He apparently got so invested in it that he dropped all his other projects and moved into the basement of the Sagrada Familia to finish it. He was a deeply religious man, and really wanted to finish the project though it was no where near completion when he died. He became so obsessed with it that in addition to moving in, he stopped showering and started almost talking to himself. He died in 1926 by getting hit by a tram, and was taken to a poor person’s hospital because nobody recognized him, and assumed he was just a homeless man. Once they recognized him, he was buried in the crypt of the Sagrada Familia.

Once completed, the Sagrada Familia should have 18 towers (now there are only 8 constructed)- 12 for the apostles, 4 for the writers of the gospel, 1 for Mary, and the tallest for Jesus. It will be the tallest building in the city, at almost 170 meters, yet one meter shorter than Montjuic (the mountain I visited on Friday), because Gaudi remembered the story of the tower of Babel, and didn’t want to outdo something that God made. Currently, there are two facades of the building. One side is the birth and life of Jesus side. It has the entire nativity story in statues along the walls of it. The tiny intricacies are amazing. Along the side of the building that had been previously completed before Gaudi, Gaudi added statues of animals like snakes, lizards, and snails to further the modernist look. On the newest part of the building are small towers, each with bowls of fruit at the very top, the fruit being decorated with mosaic colored tiles.

The other façade of the building, the passion façade, is just as amazing. It had numerous statues in the walls depicting the entire story of the last days of Jesus. It also has a square soduku/number square thing, that when added in any direction, adds up to 33- how old Jesus was when he died. This side also has the small towers with bowls of fruit at the top, but the colors are much more subdued- because they are the fruits of death as opposed to the fruits of life.

After the tour, the group was allowed to go check out the inside of the chapel. It is still very much under construction, but it will still amazing to see the incredibly detailed ceilings, spiral staircases, and stained glass. We took lots of pictures, and then left afterwards to go get lunch because we were very hungry by that point. We didn’t get a chance to go in one of the tours, because the wait was around 90 minutes, but Lauren and I decided that we will go back early one morning to see it and not have to wait in line.

We (Me, Lauren, Alex, Goose, Melody, Emily, Nicole) originally wanted to go back to our sushi buffet that we love, but once we got there, there was a huge line so we decided to try La Rosa Negra. It had been highly recommended to us by others as some of the best Mexican food in Barcelona, but most of the group was pretty unimpressed by the food. After lunch, we walked around the gothic quarter and decided to go shopping. Lauren and I had to go into el Corte Ingles, so we separated from the rest of the group. I bought a map of Europe in Spanish to decorate my wall! I thought it was cute. Then, we went on the hunt for some new cute clothes and boots. It was a very successful shopping trip as both me and Lauren got a new pair of boots and new clothes. The fashion is very different here, with almost nobody just wearing tennisshoes around town. Everybody is so much more dressed up! Almost everybody wears boots, and since I only brought one pair of flat boots over here, I had to get another.

After much shopping, Lauren and I were hungry, so we decided to get this dissert called a Goeffre. It is a sweet waffle with chocolate syrup all over it, and usually with other toppings (it is somewhat similar to a funnel cake but more doughy). We got the goeffe with chocolate, whipped cream and bananas. It was delicious, though we wished we had split one because we were so full/sick at the end of it.

Upon getting home, all of our other roommates were eating dinner and getting ready to go out, so Me and Lauren joined them. We went to this bar called “Dow Jones,” and it was themed like the stock market. All the prices for the various drinks were on a screen, and the prices went up and down based on how many people were buying. So if the price of one of the drinks went down by a lot, everybody would rush to the bar to get one of those. We met many of the GSE people there, yet the bar was so crowded and full of cigarrate smoke that after about 15 or 30 minutes we left. Everybody basically went in their own directions. Me and Goose decided that we wanted a churro, so we went to Ramblas in search of one (where we had been told to look). We walked the entirety of Ramblas for one, and came up empty handed. We were disappointed, but it was super late already so we took the metro home. Overall, it was an amazing jam packed day!

O and an update on other things: I am going to Ireland from January 31st to February 3rd! I am extremely excited. And more good news. I have accepted an internship for the summer with an economic consulting firm called Competition Policy Associates. I will be working in either the San Francisco or the Oakland office, so I will be the bay area this summer working!

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