Architecture

Antoni Gaudi’s Architectural Vision: Exploring the Fantastic Park Guell

Editor’s Note: In this, Part II of a two-part series on a sampling of architect, Antoni Gaudi’s best known creations, architecture critic, Mark Favermann takes the reader on a tour of Barcelona’s municipal gardens of ‘Park Guell.’ Gaudi lived and worked his entire life in this beautiful Catalonian city on the Mediterranean. He devoted much of his career and energy to the creation of the elaborate cathedral,’ La Sagrada Familia, as well as residental properties, ‘Casa Batllo’ and the apartment building ‘Casa Mila,’ also known as ‘La Pedrera.’ Visit all three of these properties in Part I of this story, on a link appearing at the end of this article. Gaudi’s vision and eccentricities, examined by the author, are an essential part of our understanding of the man and his design sensibility.

www.artesmagazine.com — Gaudi-designed Park Guell, Barcelona, SP. All photos by Mark Favermann

It is said that unlike his contemporary architects, Gaudi had a tiny library. The Gaudi scholar, Joan Bassegoda I. Nonell says that Gaudi’s favorite book on architecture was the tree that he could see through the window of his studio. Rather sternly, Gaudi rejected traditional approaches to architecture and had his own techniques derived from natural forms. In later years, his personal grooming was rather lax. To refer to him as an eccentric would be an understatement. artes fine arts magazine

The exhibition, Treasures of Early Irish Art traveled to American museums for two years. Comprising works from the National Museum of Ireland, the Royal Irish Academy, and Trinity College, Dublin. It was curated by David DuBon. When the exhibition opened in 1979, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, I was fortunate to attend the press opening. Even compared to the crush of later visitors one managed but a few moments to view each of the medieval manuscripts including the greatest national treasure of Ireland, The Book of Kells. The exhibition was installed in such a manner that the final gallery, with the books, was all but pitch dark. There was a queue inching past the vitrines which were illuminated at one candle power. One was pressed on by those behind eager for a glimpse of the legendary treasures. artes fine arts magazineMore

Antoni Gaudi’s Architectural Vision: Aesthetic Born of Devout Religious Mysticism

Editor’s Note: In this, Part I of a two-part series on a sampling of architect, Antoni Gaudi’s best known creations, architecture critic, Mark Favermann takes the reader on a virtual tour of Barcelona’s elaborate cathedral, La Sagrada Familia. We also visit two Gaudi-designed resident properties, Casa Batllo and the apartment building Casa Mila, also known as La Pedrera (The Quarry), gracing the wide boulevards of this Catalonian city on the Mediterranean. For Part II, appearing in ARTES in the near future, the municipal gardens of Park Guell will be highlighted. Gaudi’s vision and eccentricities, examined by the author, are an essential part of our understanding of the man and his design sensibility.

Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) was not only an eccentric architect but, as he aged, he became more and more devoutly Catholic. His religion and architecture became increasingly intertwined. The overtly mystical nature of his beliefs informed the design of his building projects and their details. Gaudi’s approach translated into an often colorful joy for much of his work, a fantastic organic arrangement of shapes and forms that tended to suggest structure and space as a visual musical harmony, sometimes a bit cacophonic, but most often smooth, quite sensual, and rather symphonic. artes fine arts amgazineMore

The Cloisters’ “Forty Part Motet” a Must-experience Installation

Editor’s Note: You may want to go to the end of this story and click on the choral work, to listen while reading…

Our pilgrimage begins near the banks of New York’s Hudson, as that river flows swiftly past late autumn foliage, burnished a toasty golden brown in a warming sun. From the vantage point of the parkway, the briefest glimpse of a stalwart Romanesque-style tower rising high above the tree line offers a tantalizing hint as to our ultimate destination. The ascent on the narrow road leading to the hilltop retreat helps set the stage for the experience that awaits, as city sights and sounds fall away, replaced by the dense, old growth forest of Fort Tryon Park and the strident call of a mockingbird from high atop a spiring oak. artes fine arts magazineMore

Arts and Crafts Styling of Early 20th C. Architects, Greene & Greene

Experiencing the creative work of architectural brothers, Greene & Greene, is like sipping a rare, richly-made wine—offering sensory delights from the firm of two authentic American Arts and Crafts masters. As the brothers Greene—Charles and Henry—worked primarily in California, they created the ‘gold standard’ for the Arts and Crafts design style. Their work, both as entire projects and in the detail found there, serves as an exquisite example of design, presented in clear, concise and elegant terms. artes fine arts magazineMore

Utrect’s Rietveld-Schroeder Huis: Early Modern Architecture Masterpiece

On a recent trip to Europe, my plane had an extended layover in Amsterdam. So, on a pre-planned quest, I journeyed by train from the airport to the ancient university city of Utrecht, The Netherlands, to see the austere, sculptural house—the Rietveld-Schroeder Huis, designed and built in 1924, by Gerrit Rietveld (left: photo by Mark Favermann).

A Dutch architect and furniture designer of extraordinary talent, Rietveld (1888-1964) was still an architectural student in 1916, when he started his own furniture factory in his hometown of Utrecht. His father had a joinery business at which he had previously worked. Rietveld then apprenticed in a jeweler’s studio. During his student years, he became familiar with the work and theories of other Dutch artists and designers. Ever experimenting with form, materials and construction methods, he produced a variety of furniture designs, and especially iconic chairs, in a straightforward strategically simplified, yet abstracted way. artes fine arts magazineMore

Philip Johnson’s Glass House: Modern Architecture in Rolling Connecticut Hills

Set on a verdant 49 acre landscaped campus with 13 other structures, in an odd 20th Century way, Philip Johnson’s Glass House is a bit like the Sphynx. It is iconic, sublime and rather mysterious. Johnson’s Glass House may be one of the best known residential structures in not only the United States, but the world.

Philip Johnson’s Glass House, on the grounds of his estate, now open to the public, in New Canaan, CT

It is by any standard an architectural masterpiece. Aesthetically, materially, visually and even structurally, it is a building form of design importance. It touches various aesthetic and visual chords of anyone who sees it. The Glass House is Philip Johnson’s greatest achievement as an architect and as a lifelong creative professional. artes fine arts magazineMore

Georgian Art: The West’s Most Eastern Frontier

The Former Soviet Republic of Georgia is unique in every aspect – from its varied landscape ranging from the Caucasus Mountains, the coast of the Black Sea and the deserts on the border with Azerbaijan – to its art.

Georgia’s location makes the country a crossroads of cultures, from the Asiatic influence of the Persian and Ottoman Empires, its occupation under the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union. While geographers are uncertain whether to categorise Georgia as Europe or Asia, the country’s culture is distinctly European. artes fine arts magazineMore

Sacred Symbol of Armenian Church, National Identity Caught Up in Regional Politics

The Cross is arguably the most familiar symbol of Christianity, but nowhere is this iconography as crucial or culture-entrenched, as it is in Armenia. Wherever you go, thousands of khachkars, or Armenian cross-stones, pervade the mountainous conscience of the world’s oldest Christian nation, providing a rare glimpse into the art of spiritual expression and its modern desecration as a cause of strife with neighboring countries.

The medieval monk Thomas à Kempis, on the subject of the Cross, once remarked, “In the Cross is salvation; in the Cross is life; in the Cross is protection against our enemies; in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the Cross is strength of mind; in the Cross is joy of spirit; in the Cross is excellence of virtue; in the Cross is perfection of holiness….” artes fine arts magazineMore

Morning in the Treasure House: the Yale University Art Gallery Revised

When the doors to the treasure house are thrown open, discrimination is not a viable option. There is only the slow walk through its many chambers, the visitor stunned at the heaped up glories. And so it is with the Yale University Art Gallery, now reconfigured and expanded on a grand scale. It is a display of understandable, if ferocious, excess. This is, after all, a chance to drag a little less than everything out of the cabinets and storage lockers in which some objects have languished for decades. I myself have once seen, arranged like muskets in an armory, a long rank of 18th century Chippendale furniture pieces in a dimly lit Yale cellar.

Left: View of the Bela Lyon Pratt Gallery through the wrought iron gates in the Old Yale Art Gallery building (1928). The gallery houses the 100,000 piece coin and medal collection and study room. artes fine arts magazineMore