#737 Spanish Architectural Extremes

Everywhere we go we find architecture. In Spain, we find architectural extremes.

Antoni Gaudi designed a rural hillside to be an exclusive neighborhood for Barcelona's elite. But when circumstances doomed those plans, the real estate failure launched one of Barcelona's major attractions, Park Guell.  Ornate and wildly ornamented, it opened to the public in 1926.

Across town, sleek, clean, and free of ornamentation, Barcelona Pavilion, the reconstructed modernist masterpiece designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1928 stands in start contrast to Gaudi's naturalistic mosaics.

Steel, glass, straight lines, and horizontal floating planes exemplify Mies' architectural theme "less is more".

These two Spanish constructions are close in age only. In Barcelona, we find architectural extremes.

Yours in Spain,
Kelly