Barcelona Day 4 (Sep 9 2008)

Hi everyone. Today I spent the day at National Musuem of Catalin Art, Which is huge! I had all intentions of going to the "Poble Espanol" afterwords, which is a mock replica of barcelona that you can walk through, showing different villages, etc., which was supposed to be right around the corner from the museum, but damned if I could find it. I ended up lost on a mountain, which would have been scary if I didn't happen to have been lost with a group of German tourists who apparently followed me up the mountain. There was a lot of "das" and "nein" but we made our way back down the mountain.

So now for a shower and a nap and then out to dinner.

Me
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With Dan at work again, it was another solo day of sighseeing. I started out again at the Plaça d'Espanya



Before heading up Montjuïc, towards the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

The MNAC, is a museum of Catalan visual art located in Barcelona, Spain. It is housed in the Palau Nacional, built for the 1929 World's Fair. Imposing in the distance...



And absolutely breathtaking up close.





Inside did not dissapoint:



And Dali!



I left the museum, picked up a sandwich, and enjoyed the view for a while




Before getting lost on a mountain




But, I did find the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe gallery, which I, suprisingly, loved!

The Barcelona Pavilion, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, was the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona. It was an important building in the history of modern architecture, known for its simple form and extravagant materials, such as marble and travertine.

The building stood on a large podium alongside a pool. The structure itself consisted of eight steel posts supporting a flat roof, with curtain glass walling and a handful of partition walls. The overall impression is of perpendicular planes in three dimensions forming a cool, luxurious space.

The Pavilion was dismantled at the end of the exhibition, but a replica has since been built on the same site (1981-1986).








I made my way back towards the hotel, stopping at CaixaFòrum
This redbrick, Art Nouveau fortress, built to house a factory in 1911 by Josep Puig i Cadafalch (architect of Casa de les Punxes, Casa Amatller, Casa Martí, and Casa Quadras), is a center for art exhibits, concerts, lectures, and cultural events. Well worth keeping an eye on in daily listings, Casaramona, now CaixaFòrum, has come back to life as one of Barcelona's hottest art venues. The restoration work is one more example of the fusion of ultramodern design techniques with traditional (even Art Nouveau)



And this, once a bull fighting arena, now being renovated into, depending on who you ask, either a music venue or a shopping center.




As usual, back at the hotel I showered, slept and went out to dinner with Dan, (unfortunately without my camera this time).