Struggle with Nature?
Sep 8th, 2013 by willmarks
We visited Park Güell with the Nelson family (also here for a year). Not your typical park, of course, it was designed by Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) and built in 1900-1914. Our guidebook notes that the developer, Eusebi Güell, intended it to be a suburban “garden city”, similar to those in England, with 60 houses planned around Gaudí’s landscape (only 5 houses were completed). Gaudí moved into one of the houses in Park Güell, and lived there from 1906 until his death in 1926.
The Park Güell website states that there is “a religious sense at the same time as organic and urban,” with the mountain locale “projecting a path of spiritual elevation” (a chapel intended for the top was never built). Gaudí apparently was focused on the struggle between man and nature and I was certainly aware of my own children’s struggle with nature on this hot September day; it seemed as if nothing could spawn interest in this famous setting.
Then we found the viaduct! This one is called “Carob’s Viaduct” and is one of several around the park. The younger generation spent close to an hour climbing the walls; they could not have been more content.
According to the Park Güell website, Carob’s viaduct “is considered baroque in style with a shaped wave…many architects have made further studies of this viaduct considering that it has a perfect shape, all the weight is perfectly shared in the column due to the structure that was made.” We could do no harm…I guess.
They also enjoyed seeing the lizard, normally confused with a dragon we are told.
