sunday continued...

I rushed off again to see La Pedrera, or Casa Mila. La Pedrera means the stone quarry. It's supposed to look like it's carved out of rock. It's the Gaudi apartment block near my house. It was finished in 1910 and restored starting in 1986. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage site. Now it's Caixa Catalunya's exhibition center, a furnished 1920's apartment, a museum and apartments. The most exciting pictures I'D seen were of the roof.
Gaudi was born in 1852 and went to architecture school in Barcelona. The bourgeoisie and the church hired him. Eusebi Guell was the main guy who comissioned him. Gaudi was into the Catalan Renaixanca. He's a Modernist who loved nature. When he built this apartment block (which is actually 2 seperate buildings), it was the border between Barcelona and Gracia (which used to be an autonomous town). Gaudi made the buildings with pillars instead of walls which meant the floors could be more independently designed.

I bought my ticket and headed for the front door. It's like a black spider web but more organic with glass in between the threads.
The building almost immediately opens onto an atrium patio that's open through all of the floors to the roof. Gaudi did that to have lots of light in the apartments. It's got some fern-y plants in the bottom and all of the floors have windows that look out on the opening. They have kelp-like metal rails around the bottom of them, like the ones out on the front of the building.
So I followed the general flow down a path to an elevator. They took my ticket and sent me up with a few other girls. I didn't get any instruction but assumed it would be quite obvious when the doors opened again.
I arrived on a sort of tunnel like a wine cellar but up in the sky. There were 270 arches around the museum area, all in a bleached brick-colored mosaic. I watched the girls in front on me as they went directly toward a sign that said "terrace" in 3 languages. That's what I was most interested in so I also went straight to it.

There were more stairs than I expected! When I got to the top, I was amazed. It's like a weird sort of playground with lots of steps and winding paths over little hills around the edge of the 2 buildings' open patios. That part's stunning and then there are all of these sculptural mosaiced THINGS scattered around the top. They're actually badalots (staircases), chimneys, and ventilation towers. It's insanity. Some of them are mosaiced with broken ceramic pieces. The others are just painted.



I wandered around the edge counter clockwise. I stared at some of the chimneys and stuff and found myself wondering "What was he THINKING?!" Not in a JEEZ he must have been crazy way, but like really I wonder what he was thinking. What goes through your head when you imagine something like this?






I noticed you can see Sagrada Familia from the top. I feel like I see Sagrada Familia EVERYWHERE I go. It's pretty tall, so that's too weird. I've been trying to wait for my friends to come with me to see it. Pretty soon, I have to break down and just go for it!




YIKES! I got a little picture crazy here! TBC...