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- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
big fan of collaboration, enthusiastic about the idea of
successive generations of Catalan craftsmen working
on one project.
More than just Gaudí:Modernisme’sother architects
Gaudí didn’t work in a vacuum: Catalonia’s purple
turn-of-the-century patch spawned a handful of other
Modernistassimilarly concerned with Gothic detail,
organic shapes, and rich ornamentation. Despite
these loose parallels, each designed highly individual
structures. Lluís Domènech i Montaner led the chasing
pack, most famously with the tile, brick and ceramic
jaw-slackener of the Palau de la Música Catalana,
finished in 1908.This, the only concert hall in Europe
you can enjoy during the day without the lights on,
boasts a stunning inverted stained glass ceiling. Josep
Puig i Cadafalch was the other big name in early 20th
century Barcelona. His surface detail was highly
intricate, his lines much more regimented than Gaudí’s.
The Casa de les Punxes, with its squeezed conical
towers, feels like aModernista’stake on a Bavarian
castle.
The sensible option
Not everyone loved Gaudí
or the otherModernistas.
The Catalan press often
caricatured him, and his
buildings were ridiculed
by intellectuals and
architects alike. They
called the Casa MilàLa
Pedrera(the Quarry).
Another Catalan
movement,Noucentisme,
even evolved as a
direct reaction to the
Modernistas’work.
Its architects craved a
classical order that
clashed with the free spirit
of Gaudí and friends.
Gaudí in America
In 1908 Gaudí sketched out
designs for a New York
hotel complex that would
feature parabolic towers
rising up to over 300
metres. They were never
realised, although did
surface nearly a century
on, proposed as a possible
replacement for the
wrecked World Trade
TheModernisme Center.
block party
The Manzana de la
Discòrdia or Block of
Discord, in L’Eixample,
Barcelona, captures
the eclecticism of
Modernisme’s big three
in one handy plot.
Domènech i Montaner’s
fancy Casa Lleó Morera
apartment building from
1905 competes for
attention with Puig i
Cadafalch’s gabled Casa
Amatller, completed in
1898 for a chocolate
mogul, and Gaudí’s Casa
Batlló, renovated into
a Grimmesque mind-
boggler in 1904.
Art Deco in Madrid
Barcelona was the
undoubted star of the
Modernismemovement
but the Art Deco style of
the 1920s and 30s was
felt more keenly in
Madrid. The Gran Vía, a
bullying torrent of traffic
these days, was laid over
tumbledown buildings
and small streets in the
early century, its new
sides lined with a
multifarious gallery of
Art Deco apartments.
The Capitol cinema
exemplifies how Madrid
embraced the new style.
