Architecture Barcelona: Gaudi (and more)

Architecture Barcelona is well-known like capital of the modernism. The city, in which architect Antonio Gaudí lived and worked counts on some of his more excellent works, than attracts every year million visitors worldwide. Most representative it is the Expiatorio Temple of the Sagrada Family, who Gaudí left unfinished and that is continued constructing in the same way that the cathedrals in the Average Age, with particular donativos and contributions.

On the basis of modern means of construction, its completion is predicted towards year 2020. Others of works more known Gaudí are the Güell Park (Parc Güell), the Milà House, also denominated "the Stone quarry", and the Batlló House. In addition to works of Gaudí, Barcelona counts on other jewels of the Catalan modernismo like the Hospital of San Pablo and the Palace of the Catalan Music of Lluís Domènech i Montaner, or the Macaya Palace and many other works of Josep Puig i Cadafalch.

The Sagrada Family, Barcelona. Apart modernist works, Barcelona also counts on excellent works pertaining to other styles and historical periods. Within the medieval period they emphasize specially gothic works that they proliferate in its historical center, indeed denominated "Gothic District" like the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia. In this same style the Church of Santa Maria of the Sea, characterized by its austerity and harmony in the measures is framed, that are considered by required muchos the gothic most outstanding work of the Catalan. Also it has different samples from contemporary architecture.

It emphasizes the German Pavilion of Ludwig Mies go to der Rohe, that was constructed in the occasion of the Exhibition the International of the 1929, like the Foundation Joan Watched of the Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert. Years later, in the occasion of the Olympic Games of 1992, the city lived a stage of great transformations that gave rise to works as the Palace of sports Sant Jordi de Arata Isozaki, the Tower of Collserola de Norman Foster and the Tower of Montjuic of Santiago Calatrava. Before the Games also it was carried out the remodeling and extension of the Airport of Barcelona, that directed Ricardo Bofill.

In the post-Olympic stage the city has continued maintaining a development architectonic, constructing buildings like the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA) of Richard Meier, the Tower Agbar de Jean Nouvel, and the projects of a new station in the Sagrera with a skyscraper, or the Tower of the Railway Triangle of Frank Gehry. Other performances have been carried out with reason del Universal Fórum for the Cultures, like the Fórum Building de Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.

Places to visit in Barcelona

Barcelona offers to the visitor the possibility of crossing on foot from the Roman ruins and the medieval city to the districts of the Catalan modernism, with its characteristic buildings, its square apples of sectioned songs, their hoisted streets and their wide avenues. The old city is practically level, whereas the new districts, as they approach the coastal mountain range, acquire more slope.

Of the concurrence and one places greater attractive is the Boulevards (in Catalan Them Rambles), stroll located between the Seat of Catalonia (in Catalan Plaça de Catalunya), center of the city, and the old port. There are kioscos of press, flowers, domestic birds and animals, street actors, cafeterias, restaurants and commerce.

Near the port swap-meets, as well as painters and sketchers of all sort are used to settling, emphasizing the zone by their artistic and cosmopolitan nature. Walking by Them Rambles several buildings of interest can be admired, like the Palace of the Virreina, the market of the Boquería and the famous theater of Great Theater of the Grammar school, in which operas and ballets imagine. A lateral street of few meters of length, leads to the Real Seat (in cat. Plaça Reial), a seat with palms and buildings with porches that lodge breweries and restaurants, and in that the collectors of seals and currencies meet to the week ends.

The stroll of the Boulevards finishes next to the old port, where the statue of Cristóbal Columbus indicates towards the sea. To two steps is the Marine Museum (Museu Maritim), dedicated mainly to naval history in the Mediterranean, and in which the reproduction on accommodation ladder of one old galera is exhibited battle. The museum is located in the shipyards of the Average Age, where the boats were constructed that sailed by all Mediterranean. The old port offers other attractiveness, like a leisure center, with commerce, restaurants, a cinema IMAX, and like documentary center, with a aquarium of the Mediterranean marine fauna. In the historical center, closely together of the Boulevards, it emphasizes the Cathedral of Barcelona, the Seat of San Jaime who welcomes the buildings of the Majority of Catalonia and the City council of Barcelona, and the side streets as much of the gothic district as of the Suburb and the Tip.

Barcelona

Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia (Spain) and the province homónima, in the northeast of Spain. It is located to borders of the Mediterranean Sea, about 120 km to the south of the mountainous chain of the Pyrenees and the border with France, in a plain limited by the sea, to the east, the coastal mountain range (Mountain range of Collserola) to the west, the Llobregat river to the south, and the Besós river to the north.

With a population of 1.595.110 inhabitants (INE 2007), Barcelona is the second Spanish city more populated and tenth with the European Union. The Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, integrated by 36 municipalities, has a population of 3.161.081 inhabitants and one 633 surface of km². The metropolitan Area of Barcelona is the boundary like defined urban nucleus officially, nevertheless this one would be including in the urban Region of Barcelona, that would extend by all the area of influence of the city, with 4.856.579 inhabitants with a density of population of 1,496 hab/km².

Barcelona has been scene of diverse world-wide events, that have contributed to form the city and to give international projection him. Most excellent they have been the Universal Exhibition of 1888 and the one of 1929, and the Olympic Games of summer of 1992.