Park Güell - Table of Contents ....................      Architecture Around the World

Terrace - Park Güell
Barcelona, Spain  

Architect: Antoni Gaudí
Built: 1900-1914
Style: Art Nouveau
Status: UNESCO World Heritage Site

The focal point of the park is the main terrace, surrounded by a long bench in the form of a sea serpent. The colorful ceramic serpentine bench, designed by Jujol, twists snakelike around the plaza. The view from the plaza is spectacular, you can see as far as the Mediterranean Sea. To design the curvature of the bench surface Gaudí used the shape of buttocks left by a naked workman sitting in wet clay. 

The whole terrace/serpentine bench platform is supported by 86 huge, slightly angled, Doric columns (to simulate trees), creating a hypostyle hall beneath the plaza,  







Trencadís (Catalan language) is a type of mosaic created from broken tile shards.
Antoni Gaudí was the first to use this technique
































Photos and their arrangement © 2009 Chuck LaChiusa
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