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In praise of Gaudí

Gaudí's work was already drawing international acclaim from visitors just two years after the architect's death

Women Trav­ellers in Cata­lan Lands


An­other as­ton­ish­ing achieve­ment of Gaudi is the Par­que Güell, car­ried out over the sides and right into the very heart of an ex­ten­sive hill to the north-west, be­yond Gra­cia, where are also sev­eral or­nate vil­las, which have a fine view over these un­usual grounds and the city be­yond.

The porter's Lodge (where might dwell Hansel and Gre­tel) is at the right of the park gates; on the left is a cu­ri­ous con­struc­tion with an im­mensely tall spire of blue tiles, fin­ish­ing with a white stone cross. There seemed no means of ac­cess even by the one and only door of open iron­work: it had nei­ther han­dle nor key­hole. Through its in­ter­stices and the grilles of a cu­ri­ous win­dow it was just pos­si­ble to look into a cir­cu­lar room slightly above the level of the road.

If our pre­sent civ­i­liza­tion were sud­denly and en­tirely wiped out, I can imag­ine ar­chae­ol­o­gists of the fu­ture pon­der­ing and spec­u­lat­ing about the pur­pose of this strange erec­tion. I con­cluded that it was a tiny chapel for the use of the in­hab­i­tants of the gay-col­ored vil­las; or, fail­ing that, a shrine to hold the relic of some saint. My airy flights of fancy were brought down to earth by the porter's wife, who as­sured me that it was in­tended for a sala de es­perar, but as no one ever went in to wait there, the door is now per­ma­nently closed.

Im­me­di­ately in front, some way up the slope of the tow­er­ing hill, a foun­tain, the water of which con­nects with a fairy grotto below, and on the right of that, hol­lowed out, is a con­struc­tion of the na­ture of a shel­ter and the ap­pear­ance of a wig­wam, all of stone.

A road winds round and up on the right-hand side, with a small pave­ment fol­low­ing the bend, and curv­ing in and out ar­ti­fi­cially as well.

In front to the left, a long flight of rugged steps leads to a tem­ple hol­lowed right into the hill, with sixty-six mas­sive pil­lars of brown stone, cov­ered to the height of about four feet with mo­saic of bro­ken white tiles. These pil­lars sup­port the roof of the tem­ple, formed by the hill it­self, which has been lev­elled to make an im­mense open ter­race, over­look­ing Barcelona.

It is en­tirely sur­rounded by a white-tiled balustrade and benches at­tached to it curv­ing in agree­ment with the edge of the huge open space.

The road ap­proach­ing this is lined with palm trees planted deeply in the hill, so that lit­tle of their trunks is vis­i­ble, and only the lovely crowns of wav­ing, feath­ery leaves ap­pear above the path. This re­ally has a beau­ti­ful and most orig­i­nal ef­fect, es­pe­cially as a back­ground to the ter­race, and it is du­pli­cated on a higher level of the hill cov­ered with fo­liage and flow­er­ing plants.

Below this sports ground, as it well might be from its size, lies Barcelona, and in a di­rect line of vi­sion rises the façade of “the Na­tiv­ity” with clois­ters-all that as yet stands ma­te­ri­al­ized of the dream of Gaudi's life, the Cathe­dral of the Holy Fam­ily. It has been called “a sym­phonic poem of im­pres­sion­ism sculp­tured in stone”, and was de­signed by him to be a pic­to­r­ial rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Birth, Pas­sion, Death, and Res­ur­rec­tion of Christ, with four façades rep­re­sen­ta­tive of thereof-a tem­ple to be built by the na­tion, in ex­pi­a­tion of its sins.

Stone in Cataluña is soft and lends it­self to sculp­ture, es­pe­cially that brought from Vi­lafranca, and the de­tails of the stat­ues, palms, flow­ers, and an­i­mals in the façade of the Na­tiv­ity beg­gar de­scrip­tion; the tree of Jesse in as­ton­ish­ingly beau­ti­ful; the ar­chi­tect in­spired his work­men.

The crypt too is fin­ished, and I have sat through more than one ser­mon in Cata­lan, with the real ob­ject presently of feast­ing my eyes on the iron­work of the sac­risty; the branches of roses and leaves in stone to be seen in the door that has been com­pleted for the clois­ter of Our Lady of the Rosary.

The Tem­ple, quite un­fin­ished as it is, has al­ready cost more than three mil­lion pe­se­tas; and un­for­tu­nately the birds of the air and the four winds of heaven are con­tin­u­ally in­jur­ing the fine stone work of the ex­te­rior.

It can­not be ex­pected of artis­tic ge­nius to con­sider ex­pen­di­ture, and Gaudi was for­tu­nate in pos­sess­ing wealthy pa­trons and ad­mir­ers, whose be­lief in him was pro­found and touch­ing. On him­self he spent the least pos­si­ble. His life was sim­ple to the point of sever­ity; prac­ti­cally he kept the rule of a men­di­cant friar.

HELEN CAMERON GORDON

Helen Cameron Gordon (1867-1949), or Lady Russell, today holds a secondary role in the history of British travel writing because the period during which she wrote –the interwar years– has been canonically monopolised by male travellers like Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell or Graham Greene. However, along with other women,such as Edith Durham, Rebecca West or Freya Stark, she left a memorable literary legacy thanks to titles like, A Woman in the Sahara (1914), Love's Island (1925), My Tour in Portugal (1932), The Sunwheel: Hindu Life and Customs (1935), Syria as It Is (1939) and West Indian Scenes (1942). Not much is known about her life. She was born in Scotland but spent part of her childhood in India. In 1916 she married Sir Alison Russell, attorney general for Cyprus, with whom she would eventually move to Africa. Gifted at languages, her wide-ranging journeys led her to be elected member of several learned organisations, including the Royal Geographical Society. She travelled across the Peninsula in 1928 and recorded her experiences in, Spain as It Is (1931), which contains eight chapters on diverse aspects of the Catalan-speaking territories. One of the most captivating things for her was the visionary architecture of Antoni Gaudí, who had died only two years earlier. Gordon's text pays tribute to his genius and to the audacious modernity of what she terms “Neo-Catalan style”.

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