Thursday March 17 - In search of the modernist

Thursday 17 March
The plan today was to see as much of the El Ensancha modernist area as possible and my hostel was already in the area. I began by following Fritz's little guide book and set out along the Passage de Garcia to Casa Batilo and was immediately discouraged but the length of the queue and the entry price. I put off this tour until the evening and proceeded on the walk. It is hard to describe the walk but I'll list the places:
Pau Claris street: Permanyer houses
Arago:church of la Concepcio
110 Bruc street: School of music (Folguera 1928)
302 Valencia: Casa Elizalde
Mallorca street: - Roger de Lluria: Casa Montaner (Montaner)
Casa Thomas (Montanier) - This is a shop and I could go inside as it was a very interesting furniture shop and I came out full of new ideas.

Avenue Diagonal 416-420: Casa de Punix (Cadafalch). I got kicked out for taking photos of the stair well.
373: Casa Quadras (Cafafalch)
318 Corsega: Casa Comalat (Valerie) I was able to go inside this building as well. I walked around the first floor and took photos. Then went all the way to the roof.

Passage de Garcia 113, 112, 96

And finally to Gaude's La Petrera. Here I had a art pass and I got an audio guide and went on the long tour.

We started in the attic under the famous cartenary arches, studying Gaude's brilliance. He was a remarkable architect and mathematician. He was so far ahead of his times. I was fascinated how he researched all his designs by building models. His experimentation using inverted cartenary models with little bags of sand to emulate the roof loads was truly amazing. The effect of this design was similar to pole houses. The cartenaries took all the load and all walls, floors and fasards were free to be any where. This construction also explained the steeply sloped roofs. I am wondering if the roofs of buildings in Paris are a simplified cartenary geometry. His biomimicry was everywhere.

I learnt a lot inside this building and was very tired at the end of the day. I forced my self to do one more art gallery and used my art pass to go to the Antonio Tapes exhibition. This was a complete failure as this guy is totally off the planet. I couldn't even begin to understand where he was coming from. I left knowing full well where I don't want to go in my art.
That night  had a meal at my local restaurant and later that evening a Spanish band had been arranged is the breakfast room of my hostel. I was a very pleasant and entertaining evening. The singer was very expressive and had the room laughing.