Dali Standing on Barcelona Balcony

On the balcony of the Reial Circle Artistic de Barcelona there is this cardboard image of Salvador Dalí. This cultural institution is located at Carrer dels Arcs 5. Follow link above for a previous post.

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La Unión y el Fénix Building, Passeig de Gracia 21, Barcelona, Spain

At Pg. Gràcia, 21 - Diputació, 265 - 267 we find this catalogued building of monumentalist style and French influence. It was built between 1927 and 1931 by architect Eusebi Bona i Puig and sculptors Saint Marceau i Frederic Marés. It is known as the Unión y el Fénix Español building, a Spanish insurance company that appeared in 1879 in Madrid after the fusion of other companies. The company had venues all over Spain and although the buildings have been used for other purposes over the years, the original architecture has been preserved. The firm, due to an enormous debt had to merge with AGF Insurance (Assurances Gènérales France) in 1994 to form AGF Unión-Fénix which was later absorbed by German Allianz in 1999. It was Allianz who then created Fénix Directo the car insurance company that operates by phone. La Unión y el Fénix on Passeig de Gracia is both a residencial and office building. There are many other examples of monumentalist architecture in the city but this one was rather anacronic in the period it was built since almost all of them appeared after the civil war. It is another example of the efforts of the bourgeoisie to monumentalize Passeig de Gràcia street. The fact that it is on a corner allowed for a rounded body building topped with a cupola crowned by the old company's symbol, a boy sitting on Phoenix, a mythical bird that dies in flames and is reborn from the ashes. Although according to experts, what the sculpture really represents is the Abduction of Ganymede by Zeus to serve as cupbearer to the gods. Ganymede was a symbol for the ideally beautiful youth in poetry.

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Holy Water Font or Basin Made With Shell, Colonia Guell's Crypt, Barcelona, Spain

Stationary fonts like this are placed at the entrance to churches as you all know but I am sure you never saw a holy water font made with an enormous shell nor have you seen perhaps such wonderful ironwork pedicle. Nothing is common and ordinary when you enter Gaudi's crypt at Colonia Guell. The place has columns, altar, stain glass and pews as any other church but you have to be prepared to digest the degree of variation of the holy elements. A church was supposed to be on top of the crypt, as the latter was part of a bigger project which started in 1908. In 1917 one year after Gaudi's art patron and friend, Eusebi Guell, died, the work was finally stopped. As you can guess foundations are very solid. Columns are made of basaltic rock and different kinds of bricks. The ceiling is vaulted in the most traditional gothic style. Every arch, every pillar, was precisely calculated with small sacks full of pellets which were tied to the ceiling in Gaudi's workshop by means of small pieces of cloth and string making up what is known as a stereostatic model. The weight of every sack was proportional to the load every arch element had to hold. But everything here is hard to imagine without visiting Colonia Güell of course. By the way, there were some posts in Barcelona Photoblog some time ago that might help: Caprice Supreme of Architecture, Modernist Door and Mosaic, Futurist Windows and Stained Glass

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Mitoraj: Art and Publicity in Barcelona

When I took this picture some months ago, last summer I think, and I was about to publish it here I suddenly found out that someone else had posted a very similar shot, from the same place. I thought the scene wasn't original enough to show. Things like that happen in public places, you are not the only one around shooting for the web. But now I think, hey, this is my picture, so what the heck, the fact someone posted it first doesn't make me a cheater. So here it is, back from my archives, a detail of one of Igor Mitoraj's itinerant sculptures against a very idyllic billboard at Rambla Catalunya. By the way, the lady, the pose, the golden reflections remind me of (now you will think I went crazy, hmm, more or less) that famous The Graduate scene where Dustin Hoffman is laying back on a beach mattress in the middle of the swimming pool with a hand behind his neck and wearing sunglasses. Need a little help?: The Sounds of Silence. I reckon the comparison is a little ackward, but you know how weird daydreaming can get to be sometimes. How about adding some common sense to the photograph by recalling other Mitoraj sculptures featured in Barcelona Photoblog in the past: A Closer Look on Igor Mitoraj's Sculpture , Grande Toscano, Mysterious Faces, Lying Head and Hold Me Tight.

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Casa Sayrach: An Art Nouveau Fantasy in Barcelona

Art nouveau buildings are surrounded by mysterious auras that can only be perceived if you are spiritually prepared. The same way auras come in many colors representing different levels of energy or so they say, modernist houses emit some kind of ectoplasm of uncanny origins that seduces, mesmerises those who behold their sinister beauty. Of course, you've got to have that something in your soul that lets you see things, that ignote power that allows the connection between you, an insignificant end user and the universal stream of knowledge, the legacy of past generations, the richness of human culture and the message that somewhere, someday, another person, an advanced user in this case, left inside a bottle and cast upon the waves of time. This is Casa Sayrach and the way I see it in my dreams.

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Artistic Office Building- Carrer Londres 106 - Barcelona

Well the title today says it all. This is just an office building covered with modern paintings in the form of boxes, where orange and red are predominant, clearly visible if you are walking anywhere near the intersection of Diagonal Avenue, Aribau and Londres streets. To be more precise the right address is Londres 106. The boxes are symmetrically displayed on the façade from street level till the highest floors of the building. I added an Indian summer effect to the background to make the paintings stand out a little bit but the colors in the boxes are real.

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Women Paintings at Maremagnum Promenade, Barcelona

These paintings of women wearing veils, hats or ties at Maremagnum promenade or Passeig D'Itaca looked so beautiful I decided to take a snap agaisnt the artist's will (check google maps below). I just don't know what gets into their minds when they see a big camera. You come with a small compact and nothing happens, you stick out some big lens and they immediately jump at your throat. Take it easy man, this is free advertising for your work which on the other hand is amazing and hypnotic, according to my opinion. Please buy him some paintings and tell him I was the one he shunned the other day.

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Art With Exclamation Marks: Stained Glass at Sagrada Familia

In this picture I tried to isolate these three stained glass windows because of an unusual and reasonable resemblance with exclamations marks. Quality of the image is out of the question, that is, don't ask cause it is awful. I just wanted to highlight the punctuation marks and how they might be used as part of some publicity campaign or something to emphasize the work of Gaudi and his art, art with exclamation marks!!!

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Mosaic Work Called Trencadis by Gaudi at Park Guell

A closeup of a serpentine bench adorned with mosaic work known as trencadis at Park Guell, Barcelona. This technique of breaking tiles of different patterns and different shapes to compose a single mosaic was constanly used by Antoni Gaudi and his followers. I found this particular shard with some numbers on it which reminds me of notations made by master masons or stone cutters on ancient walls.

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Guell Crypt: Caprice Supreme of Architecture

A supreme caprice of architecture: the art nouveau or modernist ceiling at the entrance to the crypt in Colonia Guell by Antoni Gaudi, who had been commissioned by Eusebi Güell the prosperous catalan businessman. Robert Hughes, art critic for Time, recently said he hates Sagrada Familia but loves Colonia Guell, the place where the crypt is. Of course we can object to that if we get carried out by the grandeur of the cathedral. Besides, experts see what we cannot see, no wonder they've been studying for years, although what we understand by art is a concept of man and not a law of nature so no one has the final truth. Anyway, it was about time someone cast a shadow of doubt over stereotypes concerning our city. I suggest you read the book by Robert Hughes: Barcelona.

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