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| Passeig de Gracia : La Manzana de Discordia |
The Passieg de Gracia is Barcelona’s
grandest boulevard. And when I say grand I really do mean grand. If Barcelona’s
streets were a family then Las Ramblas would be the noisy kid brother always
getting into scrapes and mischief and coming home with muddy knees whereas
Passieg de Gracia would be the beautiful and sophisticated elder sister sipping
on a cocktail with an air of superior elegance. It is a street which knows it
is too good for you.
Nevertheless it is going to have to put up with your
gawping for a while because walking down it is one of the highlights of any
trip to Barcelona.
I would not advise beginning your visit at the metro of the same name because
it is one of those metro stations that has been designed by a person who
believed that there is nothing more enjoyable in life than climbing stairs and
walking down tunnels. People have designed mazes that are less difficult to get
out of than Passeig de Gracia metro station. I’m convinced if you walk around
it for long enough you’ll bang into a minotaur.
Instead I would recommend beginning at the top of Plaza
Catalunya diagonally opposite from where you started walking down Las Ramblas
yesterday (if you read my blog post about it and I’m sure you did). You are
about to encounter the yang to Las Ramblas' ying.
Passeig de Gracia has wide spacious pavements and so unlike
other popular streets in Barcelona
it never feels too crowded. You feel that you can stop and look up at a
building without having a large group of
schoolchildren trample over you. And you are going to want to look up
because some of the buildings are magnificent. The patterned wrought iron
balconies, the delightfully contrasting facades and the occasionally frivolous
roofs. Before I came to Barcelona I
didn’t even know roofs could be frivolous.
Just walk along taking it all in. Pretty soon you will go
pass at fountain at the intersection with the Grand Via. The BigBarcelonaBlog
likes fountains almost as much as it likes water slides and every grand street
needs a good fountain.
On your left you will pass La Borsa (the stock exchange).
Should there have been a recent demonstration against the financial crisis and
austerity, this will be daubed with anti-capitalist graffitti (Passeig de Gracia is traditionally where
Barcelona’s protest marches are held – though the BigBarcelonaBlog has been on
a couple of these demonstrations and the word “march” is not really appropriate
- “occasional painfully slow shuffle punctuated by long periods going nowhere”
being far more accurate). Depending on whether you are one of the 1% or one of
the 99% you will either shake your head angrily or nod supportively. Or you
could kind of shrug if you think austerity is obviously a bad thing but
graffiti is probably not the best way to fight it. The BigBarcelonaBlog is
probably a shrugger.
Having spent a moment musing on the world’s impending
political and financial catastrophe you’ll probably fancy being cheered up.
That’s fine because just five more ambling minutes down the road on your left
you will arrive at the Manzana (Block) de Discordia. The Block of Discord is
four extraordinarily flamboyant modernist buildings built side-by-side by four
of Barcelona’s
best architects, each of which are very different in style but somehow complement
each other wonderfully. It is one of my favourite sights in Barcelona.
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| Passeig de Gracia 1 : La Facade de Discordia - harder than you think to get a good photo of |
For those of you who like facts they are Casa Lleó-Morera
by Luis Domenech i Montaner, Casa Mulleras by Enric Sagnier, Casa Amatller by
Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Casa Battló by a certain Antoni Gaudi.
For those of you who like idle speculation, I suspect the
other three architects really wanted to punch Gaudi. It’s like putting on a
play in 16th century England
that you think is really good and then finding out that the theatre next door
is premiering a new work by a guy called Shakespeare. For good as the other
casas are, Casa Batlló is genius.
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| Passeig de Gracia 2 : Casa Batlló - how to annoy three other architects in one easy building |
And that’s just the outside. The inside is better. It costs
18 Euros to go in and it worth every cent.
While we are on the subject of entry fees. You will of
course have noticed that the BigBarcelonaBlog is free but if you did want to
buy it a cerveza you could click on one of the adverts that are dotted around.
It won’t take long and it will slake a thirsty blog’s thirst…Thank you!
Back to the Batlló. Join that short fast moving queue and
prepare to be impressed. What is so fascinating about Casa Batlló is to witness
a great architect getting to grips with designing for normal life. We are used
to seeing great artists work on great projects which while impressive often are
a little removed from everyday existence. They are by their very nature
special. To try another parallel it’s as if, after finishing The Sistine
Chapel, Michelangelo’s next job was painting your living room. I think we can
reasonably conclude he wouldn’t have done it in magnolia.
Gaudi rises to the challenge of the normal effortlessly.
The curved wooden staircase leads up to a first floor apartment that you could
imagine moving into tomorrow if there wasn’t the drawback of all those tourists
traipsing through your bedroom. Apparently it was built for a middle-class
family which just goes to show that the word middle-class meant something
entirely different 100 years ago.
The large main living room has huge curved window that
looks down onto the street below. The bedrooms lead out on to a cool patio.
There are little nooks and crannies everywhere which show how much thought
Gaudi put in to making the flat elegant and interesting and yet also perfectly
functional. The curving wooden apartment is built around a cooling atrium of
tiny blue tiles whose colour gradually change in depth and intensity as they
rise to the roof. They are a wonderful contrast to the sensuosness of the
wooden interior.
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| Passeig de Gracia 3 : Casa Batlló Interior - Rhapsody in Blue |
The other apartments are closed to the public but the
laundry rooms at the top and the roof above them aren’t. And the laundry rooms
are worth the trouble. You look at me incredulously but really they are.
Because when Gaudi designed something he did it thoroughly. Airy space, cool tiles,
white light. You just know your bed linen would be crisper and more comfortable
if it were laundered up here.
And finally the roof. Which actually isn’t that special.
But it does have a pretty good view. And who doesn’t like views. Not the
BigBarcelonaBlog that’s for sure.
That’s the Casa Batlló. A couple of blocks further down
you’ll come to La Pedrera which is Gaudi’s other masterpiece on the street
(because obviously one wasn’t going to be enough). Even though this is the
Unesco world heritage sight and therefore attracts the bigger queues I don’t
think it’s anywhere near as good as the Batlló and think you can just take a
photo of the outrageous but somehow menacing façade and be done with it. If you
do decide to go in though (and I’m not saying you shouldn’t) the roof is
fantastic.
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| Passeig de Gracia 4 : La Pedrera |
This brings you pretty much to the end of Passeig de
Gracia. You could retrace your steps but I’d recommend walking for another five
minutes until you reach the trendy, funky village within a city of Gracia (it’s
where the street goes after all) where you can reward yourself with a drink and
some well-earned tapas.
Here you can reflect on what you’ve just seen. Passeig de
Gracia is the centrepiece of the Eixample - Barcelona’s
bold statement that it was breaking out of its narrow, cluttered, medieval
confines and thinking big. Really big. It is a street that is at once ambitious
and assured and occasionally astounding. It is a street which could only exist
in a great city.
Useful Words/Phrases:
¿Dondé está el Passeig de Gracia?
– Where is the Passeig de Gracia?
Una entrada para la Casa Batllo,
por favor – A ticket for the Casa Batllo, please
¡Qué grandiosa la calle! – How grand the street is!
¡Qué elegantes los edificios! – How elegant the buildings
are!
¡Qué discorde la facade! – How discordant the facade is!
If you fancy chatting:
Si te damos una franquicia y un mes de alquiler de antalación
podemos instalarnos la lunes que viene – If we give you a deposit and a month’s
rent in advance can we move in next Monday?
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