'If you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you wield your tool on it, you will profane it.' -Exodus 20:25


Colonia Güell

Colonia Güell is an industrial village of the entrepreneur Eusebio Güell that began its construction around 1880s. Unlike most of the industrial villages at that time, Eusebio Güell valued the workers' rights and the community, in which he hired various Modernism architects to build houses, school, and church within the colony. One of the most famous buildings in the colony is the unfinished Church of Colonia Güell designed by Antoni Gaudi. Since only the crypt of the Church was complete, it is also called the Crypt of Gaudi. 

The Crypt of Gaudi

Since Colonia Güell is a little far away from Barcelona, the crypt is naturally not a primary tourist spot, and therefore often time being forgotten and ignored. It does not mean the building is less inspiring than other of his works, in fact, the architect Antoni Gaudi stated himself saying that this Church is his favorite work! 

The significance of the Church is that, it is the first ever project in which Gaudi put together all his architecture gestures and innovations. From the unique stone facades and the innovative structures, to even the furniture and railings in the Church are all brought together by Gaudi to this world. He spent 10 years on designing this project and came out with the structure design method for this building as the prototype of the epic Sagrada Familia. 

A noticeable feature is the raw unpolished stone columns. Everyone questioned this design during the construction phase, yet only one of the young interns dared to ask Gaudi. Gaudi stated that it is a reference to the Bible quote: 'If you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you wield your tool on it, you will profane it.' -Exodus 20:25. This also demonstrates how faithful Gaudi was to his religion. 

The renovation for the project was a disaster carried out by architect Antonio Gonzalez Moreno later. Gonzalez replaced many of the unfinished pieces with his own method, including the stairwell designed by Gaudi. He also placed fences around the site so people have to pay to visit. The whole restoration nearly let UNESCO disqualify its World Heritage Sites title. The architect was fired in 2008 and the restoration has been postponed forever. 

In the end, only the foundation part had been built. We can only look at the study model and imagine the monumentality of the Church. Some of the materials are also left on site, waiting one day to bring the glory of Gaudi into this world. 

We went to Valencia and Tarragona during the three-day weekend. Valencia is the third biggest city in Spain, and is also one of the busiest ports in Europe! Santiago Calatrava's Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias is one of the most famous sites to visit. One could see some of the Antoni Gaudi's influence on Calatrava's works.

Tarragona is a port city that contains some of the most well preserved ruins from Western Roman Empire. The ruins are designated to become a World Heritage Site by UNESCO with good maintenance and tourist-friendly services. Tarragona could set a good example for my hometown, Tainan, since it also contains a lot of temples and fortresses from ancient times.

Palau Güell

​​We visited the luxurious mansion designed by Antoni Gaudí during our history class with Professor Raul. This is a transitional piece of Gaudí since he just started to have his own practice around Barcelona. With this project he was able to slowly transcend Art Nouveau into his own style. There are a lot of details that indicate Gaudí's ambition and creativity in architecture, such as the use of parabolic arches, the variations of steel ornaments, ventilation points, the use of skylights...etc. At this stage of the career, Gaudí had not yet started to think about human's physical interactions to the building. The railings and door knobs are still in regular Art Nouveau style whether as later on in his project, Casa Batllo, the railings and door knobs are designed to fit human's hand-hold position.

That's how far my brother and I traveled in the air in the past two weeks.

​Big brother in the town

My brother visited Europe again after our family trip in Italy ten years ago. He stayed in Barcelona for about two weeks. We spent one weekend in Paris and the other one in Amsterdam. He notcied a lot of urban differences in between European and Asian cities: the street layout, infrastructures...etc. He also got to explore and experience Antoni Gaudi's works throughout the weeks. It's such a shame that I could only join him for dinners during the weekdays due to a very busy school schedule. 

Throughout the trip, we talked about the authenticity in travel experience, like how people explore a new city in different ways and what everyone gets out of it. Aside from the traveling , we also got to catch up with each other and share our dreams just like we were still kids.  

Cooking school visits

For the last studio of college, I was assigned to Professor Alex's section to design an international cooking school in Barcelona. We visited two cooking schools during the first week to learn more about the subject. For the other section, they will be designing a sports complex in Sant Cugat.