Cristina Nita-Rotaru
Associate Professor Department of Computer Sciences
Purdue University
Barcelona
In an imaginary photo album where each place should be captured by just one picture, selecting the best Barcelona moment would not be an easy task. There are so many great pictures I could choose: a group hug at the Contemporary Museum with the Barcelona signature Zara bag (yes, everybody in Barcelona carries a Zara shopping bag), a tapas and sangria dinner on the lively Las Ramblas sitting how else but facing the street, an amazing dinner at Windsor, a hot chocolate at cafe L'Opera. Barcelona is the city of museums, good food, and good wine. But most of all, Barcelona is the city of Gaudi, where cathedrals rise in the sun like giant castle sands, parks have ginger bread-looking entrance buildings, and houses have nature inspired curved walls, or out of this earth roofs.
It was a moment though, that defined Barcelona to me, more like any other, the genuine upset of an old local man that seeing one of the tourists, putting his feet on one of the delicate, porcelain looking seats that surround the big playing ground in Park Guel: ``This is art, a creation of the great Gaudi, it is made for sitting, take your feet off! '' It got to me that drowned in so much plastic and surrounded by so much ugliness, we stopped recognizing and appreciating real beauty, something that the old man still could do. We gave away quality for quantity and that was not a good deal. It is beauty what I took with me from this very unique city. It reminded me that buildings and parks can be not only ``useful'' and ``functional'', but unappologetically beautiful.
May 2006
) Park Guel - Entrance and suspended playgound |
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) Casa Milla (La Pedrera) - Front view |
) Casa Batllo - Fireplace |
) Sagrada Famiglia Cathedral - Ceiling |
) Park Guel - Suspended playground |
) Casa Batllo - Front view |
) Casa Milla - Roof |
) Park Guel - Entrance building |