The Park Güell is a public park with gardens and architectural elements located in the upper part of the city of Barcelona (Spain).
Translated by Aurélie ARNOLIN | Lee en español | Lire en français
Park Güell, in Catalan and Park Güell in its original name, is a public park with gardens and architectural elements located in the upper part of the city of Barcelona, Spain, on the sea side of Mount Carmel, located in the foothills of the Sierra de Collserola.
Administratively it belongs to the district of the health, in the district of Gracia. Designed as urbanization, it was designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí, the largest exponent of Catalan modernism, commissioned by businessman Eusebi Güell. Built between 1900 and 1914, was opened as a public park in 1926. In 1984, UNESCO inscribed the place in the patrimonial site of Park Güell «Works of Antoni Gaudí«.
Parc Güell is a reflection of Gaudí’s artistic fulness: a naturalistic scene belongs to his (first decade of the twentieth century), during which the architect perfected his personal style, thanks to his inspiration in the organic forms of nature, For which he put into practice a whole series of new structural solutions originated in his in-depth analysis of regulated geometry.
For this reason, the Catalan artist adds a great freedom of creation and an ornamental creation of imagination: from certain Baroque, his works acquire a great structural richness, forms and volumes lacking rationalist rigidity, in a classical place.
In Park Güell, Gaudí has deployed all his architectural genius and put into practice several of his innovative structural solutions that would be emblematic of his organismic style and culminating in the Sagrada Familia.
The park designed by Eusebi Güell and Antoni Gaudí as a structured ensemble where, in an incomparable setting of natural beauty, there would be high quality houses, with all the technological advances of time to ensure maximum comfort, with finishes of Great artistic quality.
They also devised a symbolically strong ensemble, as they tried to synthesize in the common elements of the park a large number of political and religious ideals shared by the boss and the architect: thus, they are visible in the defined concepts of Catalan politics – especially on the stages of access, where the Catalan countries are represented – and the Catalan religion. The mythological element is also important: it seems that Güell and Gaudí were inspired by the Temple of Apollo of Delphi for their design of the park.
On the other hand, many experts wanted to see in the park a series of references of various signs, due to the complex iconography applied by Gaudí, the whole development project, references ranging from political Religious exaltation, through mythology, history or philosophy.
In particular, many scholars claim to see references to Freemasonry, an improbable fact because of the deep religious beliefs of Gaudí and Count Güell and in any case it is not proved by an objective index throughout the whole world, Historiography of the modernist architect.
The multiplicity of symbols developed in the Park Güell is, as has been said, a political and religious sign, at least with a certain mysterious character due to the taste of time for enigmas.
