PARK GUELL

Eusebi Güell commissioned the Park Güell, in the neighbourhood of Gràcia, on the southern side of the Carmel hill. It also contains the Gaudí Museum in the house that Gaudí had built for his own use in the park, designed by his disciple Francesc Berenguer (1905). It has notable examples of furnishings designed by Gaudí and personal memorabilia. UNESCO declared the park a place of World Heritage in 1984.

Gaudí planned and directed the construction of the park from 1900 to 1914 as infrastructure and facilities for an English-style garden suburb, planned to accommodate sixty single-family residences. The project was a financial failure and became city property in 1923. Although it was never fully completed, it is one of Gaudí's most colorful and playful works.

Detail of the hypostyle hall

It is composed of a series of buildings and other constructions, like the great square supported by the enormous 84 Doric-inspired columns and crowned by a sinuous bench richly decorated with multicoloured broken pieces of tiling. For the creation of this bench and the keystones of the hypostyle hall, Gaudí had the collaboration of the architect Josep M. Jujol.

The pavilions at the entrance complete the wall that surrounds the park. Intended as a porter's lodge, these pavilions are of stone with roofs of Catalan vaults of flat-laid brick finished with the multicoloured broken pieces of tiling. The tiles follow the winding geometric surfaces, and give the park's ornamentation its unique beauty.

A grand stairway divided by a mythological dragon or lizard thatserves as an overflow for the cistern leads to the mentioned hypostyle hall, which was destined to be the community's market place.

Another features are the viaducts that support the roads for the traffic with retaining walls and robust inclined pillars that form elegant, natural-looking arches faced with rough reddish stone. The park covers the nearby hill with stepped pedestrian paths and gardens amid the lush foliage.