Two Buildings in Barcelona
If you’re a fan of architecture and you ever get a chance to check into a Barcelona Spain hotel , you’re going to find a city filled with fascinating buildings and intriguing sculptures. Just stroll though the narrow streets of Barsa and you’ll find a plethora of historic examples, from the Medieval to the Modern. On a recent trip to the city, I found myself walking and admiring a series of buildings built at the turn of the last century — not the 20th to the 21st, but the 19th to the 20th.
I personally like small buildings, such as the Farmacia Nordbeck. This is just a pharmacy, hardly something you’d think of as an attraction for tourists, but the building was constructed in 1905, in the style of the moderniste . Its windows are stained-glass, framed with a dark wood. This is in the area of town known as L’Eixample, a Barcelona district which lies between the Ciutat Vella (or old city) and what were once nearby towns, but have been consumed by Barcelona as it grew (Gracia, Sants, Sant Andreu, and so on). All around this district, you may find interesting chemists, like the Argelaguet in Carrer Roger de Lluria.
Just a few buildings down the street and you’ll come across Cases Tomas Roger. These are two houses — 37 & 39 — designed in the last part of the 19th Century by Enric Sagnier, and it’s of interest because of the archways and the restoration of its sgraffito , which literally means “scratched” and is a wall decoration method, using layers of plaster that contains contrasting colors, applied to a wet surface. The scratching is often done by a comb-like tool, and creates a series of waves or stripes on the wall, revealing the color underneath.
There are so many buildings in Barcelona that go unnoticed by travelers, simply because the bigger, flashier architecture overwhelms them, or the buildings are hidden away around corners and narrow lanes. It’s worth taking a step out into the streets, though, and hunting them down.
Related posts:
- Angel of Barcelona
- The Districts of Valencia, Spain
- Parkinson’s and Visual Hallucinations in Barcelona