Barcelona

It was officially opened as a public park in 1922, but Gaudí had originally conceived it as a garden city when commissioned by the aristocrat Eusebi Güell, who had purchased an extensive rural estate in 1895 located on Carmel hill, with the intention of building a garden city like the ones he had discovered in England. Gaudí’s project basically consisted of building large houses with spaces for public use, such as a large covered square intended as the market, an open-air theatre square, a chapel, a porter’s lodge, a service pavilion with a reception and public telephone, and other communal services. Factories, industry, workshops and clinics were expressly excluded as they undermined the principle of the project, a return to nature.

It was not a success and was interrupted in 1914, by which time some of the communal facilities had already been built. In 1922, six years after Eusebi Güell’s death, Barcelona City Council bought the estate to turn it into a public park.

Even if nature seems to have taken second place, one thing is certain: the architect had it very much in mind to achieve a perfect symbiosis between stone and green. There are two separate areas in Park Güell: the Gaudí area, which preserved the natural vegetation, today made up by an expanse of woodland that is home to abundant carob trees, oaks, pine trees and holm oaks, surrounded by a thick understorey, and the monumental area, the best known these days.

Here you will find the Jardí d’Àustria, an old nursery where species were cultivated that would later be transferred to the park. For many years these included species from elsewhere, making it anything but a Mediterranean garden. These last few years have seen more appropriate plants being introduced, such as olive trees, pine trees, oak trees, broom, laurustinus, magnolias and aromatic plants.

Park Güell has numerous emblematic spaces of considerable architectural value. The main entrance on Carrer d’Olot is watched over by two pavilions built in Gaudí’s typical style, with rounded forms and a burst of light and colour. On the right stands Casa del Guarda, conceived and designed by Gaudí as the Park Güell porter’s lodge.

The monumental Dragon stairway, dominated by the trencadís-coated salamander, starts here, underscoring the importance of the entrance for pedestrians going to the garden city’s communal facilities, the market and the square. The stairway leads to the Hypostyle Hall, which was intended to include the garden city’s market and has 86 Doric columns.

Plaça de la Natura, the square at the centre of this monumental area, begins on firm ground by the hillside and extends over the hall’s columns. The square’s outstanding feature is the perimeter bench that undulates round it like a 150-metre-long snake. This bench is also covered in trencadís, made from little ceramic and glass pieces, and designed by Josep Maria Jujol, one of Gaudí’s collaborators. Standing next to the square there is an old, stately, country house, which has been a school since 1931.

It is very clear that an architect had a hand in the park’s design and Gaudí’s peculiar style can be seen in any of its features, no matter how small. There are no straight angles anywhere: the columns are inclined like palm trees in varied shapes, suggesting tree trunks, stalactites and natural coves, and wavy forms, resembling rivers of lava.

Many of the surfaces are covered in trencadís , pieces of ceramic or glass put together like colourful mosaics.

The park’s central point is Plaça de la Natura. The square is partly supported by the Sala de les Cent Columnes (Hall of a Hundred Columns) which actually consists of eighty-six columns that look like giant stalagmites in a cove.

This extends to the stairway at the park’s main entrance, whose steps are symmetrically laid out around the sculpture of a salamander, which has come to symbolise the garden. It represents the alchemical salamander, symbolising the element of fire.

Leaving the monumental area and heading for the exit on Carretera del Carmel, you will cross the first of three viaducts, designed by Gaudí, on the network of paths connecting the various parts of the park.