Looking more closely...

Tourists often have only one chance to enjoy a sight before going on to the next. We’re enjoying the opportunity as residents to look and look again, seeing a little more each time. Here are a couple of nearby sights we have been re-viewing.

Soon after arriving we walked past a church a few blocks down the Passeig de Sant Joan built primarily of brick. It seemed nice enough but of no special interest.
But as we passed by again, we began to notice more details. Several types and shades of brick were laid in complex patterns. Tiling was used alongside the brick for contrast and color, and together they create a variety of visual patterns.
























A small sign in fronts says the church was built in 1878 and designed by Joan Martarell Martels, one of Gaudi’s teachers. That is a decade before 1888 Exhibition, often cited as the beginning of the modernisme movement. The overall design of the church is not in modernisme style, but the use of brick and tile anticipated their widespread use by modernisme architects. Both brick laying and tiling are Catalan crafts incorporated into many modernisme designs.

Two surviving constructions for the 1888 Exhibit – the Triumphal Arch and the Café-Restaurant – are built of brick, which apparently was unusual at the time. Or rather, it was unusual to leave the brick exposed. Both still stand in the Parc Citudella at the end of Passeig de Sant Joan. So the church becomes an interesting anticipation of some aspects of modernisme architecture.

Closer to home, a couple of blocks down Sant Joan, is the Casa Macaya, a home built in 1901 by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, a major modernisme architect.
The overall impression is relatively symmetric and severe for a moderinisme design, but, like better known houses Puig designed on Passeig de Gracia and Avenue Diagonal, the Casa Macaya incorporates neo-Gothic design elements.




An elaborate neo-gothic window on the first floor of the right tower balances the gothic entry doors on the left. While his design otherwise differs greatly from that of the the church a couple of blocks away, Puig also uses tile to add a touch of color to the elaborate window design.









A row of green tile “plants” tops both the stone balcony across the first floor and that under the window.

Less obviously, tiling decorates the underside of the balcony over the entry door.















Finally, a close look reveals a whimsical, modern touch to the neo-Gothic design: a sculpted cyclist in the capital supporting one end of the stone arch over the entry.