Gaudí and Graffiti

I knew very little about Barcelona before I arrived. For the most part, this was a purposeful decision geared towards spontaneity and discovery. Before Barcelona we had been in Paris (more on this later, I just feel like starting from the end of the trip) and our itinerary there had been necessarily more structured. My minimal research meant I knew that the "sandcastle church" existed, but I couldn't tell you Gaudí was the architect responsible, or anything about his aesthetic.

I knew about the Sagrada Familia and Park Güell because a friend had said something to the effect of, " I don't know what Gaudí was on, but it's like Neverland up there, you gotta go." Hannah and Alice convinced me to go inside Sagrada Familia (I thought the 11 Euro admission was a little steep) and it was the best thing I could have done for my appreciation of Gaudí's work. First, after visiting countless cathedrals and churches on this trip, being in the temple while it's still under construction provided an insight into the time and effort involved. And then there is the money. All along the project has been privately funded. Once I found out my entrance fee was a contribution to the continued construction I was even more pleased A & H convinced me.

When I first walked through Sagrada Familia, I recognized that the architecture was unique, and somehow geometric and naturalistic at the same time, but it wasn't until I walked through the small "Gaudi and Nature" exhibit in a corridor adjacent to the nave that I finally figured out that Gaudí was "on" nature. The exhibit showed side-by-side images of Gaudí's points of inspiration, for example: honeycombs (bees are the architects of nature), leaves and cones from coniferous trees, or single-celled organisms. The fantastical is organic. Setting is relevant to the creation.

The day before we left Barcelona, Hannah and Alice were not feeling particularly well, so while they rested, I went for a walk in the park near our hostel. I had no desired destination and wandered around the rocky paths and stoney steps I came across. After seeing Gaudí's designs, I decided this walk could have a Gaudían spirit and I would look for inspiration in the details of natural design. At one point I snuck through an open gate and was drawn towards a bush covered in tiny yellow flowers (Barcelona is already in bloom, springing ahead of the rest of us). When I got closer, I noticed the bush had unusual foliage--electric green and spiral in shape. There were some brown ones too that, but they still clung to the branch. They looked like earrings I might wear and found them rather beautiful as well. My camera's battery had died the previous day, but Alice had lent me her camera so I could show what I had done while she and Hannah were resting. I took a few photographs of the bush (to my favorite Floridian: I know how you hate photos of flowers, I hope you can forgive this if you are reading) and turned around with a sense of satisfaction having discovered a Gaudí-worthy detail.

But then, a few feet ahead, there it was: a rock, spray painted with a symbol that looked just like the chlorophyll-less spirals. The hooligan was an artist.

I walked back through the cracked gate, and down a different path than I had gone up. On my left I felt a radiating green coming from the stoney wall along the path. A graffiti creature of the same green as the spirals stared back at me. Even his shape was reminiscent.

So that was my walk. I could never and would never argue that the graffiti artists snuck through the gate or noticed the spirals, the creative influence is beyond a definable, direct connection, but as Gaudí said: "The great book, always open and which we should make an effort to read, is that of Nature."