Palau Guell Chimneys

by Joan Carroll

Title

Palau Guell Chimneys

Artist

Joan Carroll

Medium

Photograph - Digital Art

Description

I arrived in Barcelona after an overnight flight where I didn't sleep much. I struggled to stay awake the entire day so that I could get oriented to the time zone more quickly. About 4 in the afternoon, when it was beginning to get more difficult to put one foot in front of the other, I passed by Palau Guell, a mansion designed by the architect Antoni Gaudi for the industrial tycoon Eusebi Guell, and built between 1886 and 1888. It isn't inexpensive to visit, especially since the euro was doing quite well against the dollar at the time. So I stood on the street and debated...and debated. Finally I asked myself "Well, girlfriend, what did you come to Barcelona for?". And that was the start of what seemed like an Alice in Wonderland journey through Palau Guell and Gaudi's other masterpieces. Palau Guell is not the most famous of Gaudi's works as it is one of his earliest. Yet it has still become one of the masterpieces of the Modernisme, or Catalan art nouveau. The conspicuous chimneys that are typical of Gaudi were installed on top of the roof in 1895. The roof has a total of 20 chimneys also used for the ventilation of the building. Many of them were done in the 'trencadis' technique whereby Gaudi used rejected pieces of ceramic from a local ceramics industry, broke them up and applied them with mortar to various surfaces for a striking visual effect. Palau Guell is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Works of Antoni Gaudi". Maybe it was the jetlag but this chimney looks like some sci-fi warrior.

FEATURED PHOTO, UNESCO World Heritage Sites group, 3/21/15

FEATURED PHOTO, Out Of The Ordinary 1 a day, 3/17/15

FEATURED PHOTO, Spanish Theme Artwork Group, 3/16/15

FEATURED PHOTO, I Wish I Was There group, 3/16/15

FEATURED PHOTO, The World We See group, 3/16/15

Uploaded

March 16th, 2015

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