Gaudí’s Casa Mila, Barcleona
It was while slowly wading against the tide of sweaty tourist hordes on Las Ramblas that I realised I was engulfed by the ultimate stag do. A 24/7 party, run by an army that doesn’t use maps for its sorties, but the sort of websites that calculate cost/effect analyses of cheap booze and resulting mayhem.
Microwaved-pizza-and-three-tapas-for-€9 is about as low as it gets on the Euroculinary register, but in Barcelona they’ve added metre-long straws to communally suck up from tureens Spain’s potent self-medicating mix, sangria.
The thing is, Barcelona asked for it. Catalonia’s capital of cool, arguably the most stylish city in all of Spain, positively lusted after this low-rent tourist trade, foolishly thinking it was hosting the party, and not considering for a second that it might involve importing what can only be described as cultural rabies. Fortunately, it’s a big enough city to deal with this festering sideshow, thank God – or rather, thank Gaudí, the Catalan posthumously appointed to look down on this unholy mess. Rather than Picasso or Miró, it’s the architect who’s been left to jolt the unwary, visually tasering them with fantasy turrets, smashed mosaics and relentless curves which Disneyfy rather than dignify otherwise sober buildings. Everywhere’s got Art, but only Barcelona has such crazily camp architecture that it’s instantly recognisable, no matter how much vino collapso you’ve drunk.
Everywhere’s got Art, but only Barcelona has such crazily camp architecture that it’s instantly recognisable, no matter how much vino collapso you’ve drunk
Leaving Las Ramblas and crossing Placa de Catalunya to wander the chic Eixemple district, where grand luxe stores still brazen out La Crisis, you’ll recognise Gaudí’s buildings without even looking up. Their doorways are perma-crammed with snapping Japanese and Euro school parties gawping up at his crazy design, the contents of a Wickes bargain bin fashioned into beauty, photographed primarily for being funnily foreign, generally wacky, or more simply, remnants of another era. The great fin-de-siècle creative movement that swept Europe into the twentieth century had its source in the simplicity of the Arts and Crafts movement, but it ignited the explosive beauty of Art Nouveau and Modernism in Catalonia, eventually generating such convoluted avant garde Gaudí conundrums as La Sagrada Familia, still unfinished 130 years on.
Barcelona was an incredibly wealthy city of merchants whose money made sure Gaudí wasn’t working alone. He and his cohorts vied for business, for contracts as lucrative as those that Chipperfield and Foster + Partners compete for today. These men were at the forefront of the Modernista movement: they designed with elan, and built with speed and excitement. They collaborated too: it was actually Jujol who made a lot of the “Gaudí” mosaics, such as those at Park Güell.
But it was Lluis Domènech i Montaner, not Gaudí, who is credited with the first Modernista building, the Castle of the Three Dragons (now the Zoology Museum). A director at Barcelona’s School of Architecture for 45 years, he had immense influence over the direction that Catalan Modernism took. His creations have become UNESCO world heritage sites and deserve a wider audience, beyond the Catalan cognoscenti. His works lie in the shadows, down side streets if you like, but two in particular are worth flying to Barcelona to see on their own. You can even stay in one of them.
Hotel Casa Fuster, almost surrounded by Gaudí buildings (Casa Mila is only 500m away), began life as a chocolate factory before it was bought by Mariano Fuster, an immensely wealthy Mallorcan who wanted the most glamorous house for his wife Consuelo Fabra. In 1908, Domènech was commissioned, and set to work with a sky-high budget, using costly materials and ornate designs. It was, at the time, the most expensive building Barcelona had ever seen.
Gaudí’s Casa Mila, Barcleona
The current reception area – the property became a hotel ten years ago – was originally the entrance yard for carriages, leading directly to the ballroom, and is now a comfortable but rather fabulous lounge, complete with grand marble pillars supporting an imposing vaulted ceiling. The exterior is a riot, with white marble façades, flat walls curving into and around turrets, and stone carvings of swallows’ nests. Six storeys above the tree-lined street is a roof terrace bar of considerable swank and charm. Here, by day, geography meets history through those parapets of beautifully carved stonework with a fabulous 360 degree view of the entire city. It makes for a very engaging sundown, sipping long slow beers, or chilled local wines. At night, when you peer through the flamboyant ramparts and balustrades, you realise you can see all the way back down to Las Ramblas. It’s only two kilometres away, but might as well be 100: up here is a very different party.
The hotel runs like clockwork, employing multilingual staff with an innate talent for choosing correctly between “Ola” and “Hello” when passing in a corridor. They’re not fazed by much: they’re used to world-famous architects (Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano et al) dropping in to study the interior, and the stream of Ferraris stopping on double yellow lines outside gives the concierge plenty of time to play Top Gear. Bedrooms are finished in mahogany, with plumped up soft furnishings. In mine, French windows opened onto a secluded terrace overlooking a clean, empty courtyard, with no traffic noise; very restful after a noisy day in high city temperatures.
Just before Domènech created Casa Fuster, spending the private wealth of a rich merchant on opulent baubles (the family only lived there for a short time before the ground floor was turned into one of Barcelona’s hottest coffee shops), he built a public masterpiece, a concert hall, albeit with a little less cash.
The outside of the Palau de la Música Catalana is virtually hidden down an alleyway and has been beautifully preserved under glass, its extensive brickwork finished with the craftsmanship of local stonemasons who carved with brio. The lobbies shimmer with reflections on stained glass and ceramics, bright colours and sweeping stairways which demand visitors make an “entrance”. But it’s the inner chamber itself that’s the consummate beauty, a multicoloured musical box that no other city can rival.
Of all the gems Barcelona has to offer, this is the must see, a place for Catalans to gather, to enjoy and to celebrate their heritage. It’s not just that its decorative splendour dazzles the eye – it’s an emotionally charged space. Domènech wasn’t just an architect, or even an artist, but a politician too, and this is his legacy for Catalonia: a living inheritance, paid for by public subscription. Palau de la Música is the perfect home for Catalan music, and should be cherished forever.
And in truth, just a few hundred metres away in that seething cauldron of gimcrackery, Las Ramblas, more gawdy than Gaudí, all is not lost there either. Down a backstreet is Can Culleretes, the city’s oldest restaurant (founded 1786), which sports a grand ceramic mural, some dodgy old art on the walls, and where a €12.80 menu of gazpacho, frito de pescado or quail with mushrooms, and flan includes water but not wine. That’s an extra €1.80 for half a litre. It’s brilliant old Catalonian cuisine, served with hustle and bustle by ladies of a certain age, and restores one’s faith in everything you thought lost to international tourism in the Barri Gòtic. The food is simple, straightforward, and cheap. In today’s parlance it’s also fresh, seasonal, and local. There isn’t a bucket of sangria in sight. C
Hotel Casa Fuster is a member of Leading Hotels of the World
Derek Guthrie flew to Barcelona with Vueling Airlines