Barcelona: Closed for Renovation
The interior makes the exterior look plain and dowdy. But we were not allowed to photograph inside. You're pretty much not allowed to photograph inside anything in Spain anymore.
The theater is a riot of flowing shapes and exuberant decoration.
Who would have thought you could make brickwork curve like this? Privately funded, stone was too expensive. Economy forced architect Domènech i Montaner to find delightful and creative solutions that we can all enjoy today.
Playful decorations appear everywhere. A building that's fun to look at—what a concept.
You can see toward the bottom of the column that some tiles are missing. The Palau de la Música Catalana needs renovation. So this is what it looked like when we returned the next day.
We repeatedly ran into this situation. On the Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Euhàlia, for example, you can see weeds growing from cracks and crumbling stonework.
That meant we couldn't view the beautiful Neogothic exterior, hidden as it was under scaffolding. The front elevation is spectacular, but it was invisible under tarps this May. From the side, it's all scaffolding and cranes.
More than anything, I wanted to photograph Gaudí's unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Família. When I got there, this is what I saw.
Yeah, they're working on the unfinished portion of the church. Also, they're renovating the parts that have been crumbling over the years since construction was more or less halted.
If you make an effort to peer through the scaffolding, you can see some of the delightful details.
But the architects who are guiding the building's completion don't share Gaudí's concept. It's becoming a mishmosh of different styles. A pity. There are some wonderful interior views, but again, we weren't allowed to take photos.
Disappointed, I headed back to the Plaça Sant Jaume for some people watching. Sure enough, a huge crane was setting up for some project, right smack in front of City Hall.
The good news is that Barcelonans are taking good care of their city. Ever since the 1992 Olympic Games put Barcelona on the map as an international tourist destination, they've been scrubbing, restoring and rebuilding it. And it appears that the work has accelerated recently.
The bad news is that a substantial number of the sights were inaccessible or views of them were blocked. Since the focal point of my visit was to photograph Barcelona's incredible collection of buildings, I was disappointed. The photographs I've shared with you in this series of posts are the result of careful selection of sites and camera positions.
I'm going to have to return. I don't know if that's good news or bad news. Good news, I guess. It's a warm, livable city, worth an extended stay. Meanwhile, it's back to Madrid, this time by plane. I want to see if I've learned how to run the gantlet of pickpockets at the airport successfully.