En la ciudad con Alfredo: In the city with Alfredo

We were supposed to go see Babel tonight, but instead we ended up just walking around the Gracia area. It's crazy how far down the streets you can see because of the champfered corners of the Cerda city blocks. I caught a glimpse of Sagrada Familia from about 8 blocks away. When I told Alfredo I hadn't seen it, he was like, well clearly you are an architecture major and now you need to go down there. haha...so we did. This is the only picture my camera took before dieing once again--there is something seriously wrong with it...not cool.

This building sparked a really interesting discussion about whether the building is art or architecture or sculpture or what? I think my opinion may have changed a bit as a cause of this. While I'm a Gaudi fan, I can't say that was is currently built should be considered architecture: It doesn't seem to be carrying out its intended purpose/function, which is the point of good architecture. It should also be for the use of people, and presently it is not being used except as a tour site in order to raise money to continue construction. Which really just brings me back in a circle, because it can't be finished to meet the intended use without being an object until money can be found to complete it...*sigh.*

Caminando por L'Eixample: Walking through the Eixample

Today we did a bunch of walking for sketching class as we began to discover l'Eixample. Below are a collection of shots along the way, until about 3/4 through Eugenia's tour (and literally as we got to the buildings I was assigned to photograph) when my camera battery decided to die on me...awesome.

Here's a glimpse of L'Eixample on our tour, though, from La Universitat, to the bike path which always reminds me of Gram and Gramp McGuire, to crazy art, to modern architecture, to churches that were moved from completely different parts of the city piece by piece...pretty cool.