Barcelona's Iconic Gaudí Buildings: Casa Vicens and Parc Güell

Many visitors to Barcelona spend half their ticket money on Gaudí's architecture, over a hundred euros—expensive; and when touring the buildings, you have to keep your eyes wide open, afraid of missing a single detail or metaphor, yet you still struggle to understand the geometric concepts behind the architecture, the interplay of light and space, and the biblical stories—mentally taxing. There is no direct bus or metro, so you have to climb the steep mountain path, and by the time you reach the park entrance, your legs are trembling—physically exhausting.

This dazzling visual feast begins with Casa Vicens, the first building that brought Gaudí fame. It was the first private residence commissioned from Gaudí. When designing the house, Gaudí had just graduated from architecture school, and his inspiration still came from architectural elements, decorations, and colors of Japan, India, and other places he had seen in the school library's architectural albums. This small house was intended as a summer vacation home for the owner, starkly contrasting with the plain surrounding residences. Although its style is clearly different from the Sagrada Família, lacking many complex curves and spirals, Gaudí's thorough consideration of practicality, use of light, and functionality of each room runs throughout.

Gaudí's career coincided with the large-scale expansion of Barcelona. After the Spanish-American War, Spain lost many overseas colonies, and entrepreneurs and investors brought their capital back home, launching massive construction projects. The year after Casa Vicens began construction, Vicens was invited by his friend Sir Eusebi Güell to design Parc Güell. The wealthy businessman Güell greatly admired Gaudí's architectural genius and planned to build a residential estate on a hill away from Barcelona, with an expected 60 standalone villas developed in two phases. He wanted Gaudí to emulate the concept of English garden cities, where buildings are surrounded by nature and plants. The first phase was planned for 30 villas, but the location was too remote—on a steep, cold, and windy hill with inconvenient transportation. Of the first 30 villas, only three were sold: to Güell himself, Gaudí himself, and Gaudí's lawyer. In other words, not a single unit was sold to the public. The project was therefore suspended. Later, it was taken over by the city and opened as a park. Today, to visit this unfinished real estate project, you have to pay a €10 entrance fee. In this park, Gaudí first used the technique of assembling broken tile pieces to decorate walls, stairs, and benches. The cute gingerbread-house-shaped building at the main entrance was originally planned by Gaudí as an office for the security guard.