Gaudi Afternoon Read Online Free PDF

gold and her fingernails, long perfect ovals, were the same shade. She had a gold tooth she was proud of and a vaultsworth of gold jewelry. Her perfume was Opium and it was heavy.
    Carmen was from Granada and never let anyone forget it. She would never want to go back there to live, she confided once, it was too backward, too Catholic, too anti-woman. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t far more history and culture than Barcelona. “ Los moros, La Alhambra, todo eso ,” Carmen would say, dismissing the Catalan heritage. “Our history in Granada is very old.”
    She refused to learn more than a few words of Catalan, and considered women like Ana, from old Catalan families, snobbish and too Europeanized. Carmen was suspicious of Europe. She made an exception for expatriate Americans like me and a few English people. She had once travelled to London and remained very impressed by the red buses and the men in the City who still wore bowler hats.
    â€œThere!” she finally said, spinning me around on the chair. I wasn’t sure I liked it: long on top and closely cut on the sides and back. My neck felt cold.
    But I smiled and got up to go, and only then did Carmen remember what I’d said earlier.
    â€œWhat do you mean, staking out a building?”
    â€œLa Pedrera,” I said. “I’ve taken up architecture.”
    â€œThis is some crazy thing you’re involved in, I feel it. How long are you going to be in Barcelona? Are you in trouble? Tell me.”
    I gave her a kiss on the cheek as I got up. “I’ll be in Barcelona long enough to see you again. What about meeting me tonight, later?”
    I winked and she drew herself up on her heels.
    â€œI’ll think about it,” she said loftily.
    I knew she would too, all afternoon.
    Back at La Pedrera I joined the four o’clock tour, just for something different. With all the other tourists I milled about in the dim stone foyer, reading about Antoni Gaudí on the display boards.
Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) is considered the most outstanding Catalan architect of Modernism, the art movement that flourished in Europe during the first years of this century and whose typical traits are a variety of forms and a wealth of ornamentation.
    Gaudí was born Reus, in a family of artisans where he learned the traditional crafts that he was later to use in his works. In 1878 he received his degree in architecture and from 1880 to 1926 he worked, above all in Barcelona.
    His most important works in this city are the Parc Güell, the garden-city built between 1900 and 1914 in the north of the city; Casa Batlló (1904–1906) on Passeig de Gràcia; the cathedral Sagrada Família (begun in 1883 and still uncompleted) and La Pedrera or Casa Milà (1906–1912), one of the most innovative creations in international architecture.
    And of course the display mentioned the manner of Gaudí’s death. He had been run down by a streetcar and, unrecognized, taken to the poor hospital where he died.
    The display had this to say about La Pedrera:
The conception of the inner areas and patios, the two entrances, the underground carriage park, the majestic facade, the undulating mansard and the original terrace dotted with ceramic-coated chimneys and ventilating flues endow La Pedrera with a striking personality which some have linked with European expressionism and others have defined as an anticipation of surrealism.
    After a brief introduction our guide directed us to the back of the foyer and up many flights of stairs. Huffing and puffing we arrived in the attic just below the roof, which had been remodeled to provide small studios and apartments. Then we emerged onto the roof, to the sky and to a wonderful view of Barcelona from the mountains to the sea. In the near distance you could see the many spires of the unfinished cathedral Sagrada Família.
    The rooftop’s extraordinary aspect lay in the chimneys and