The Rough Guide to Barcelona 8 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

and industrialist Eusebi Güell i Bacigalupi. It was commissioned in 1885 as an

extension of the Güell family’s house located on the Ramblas, and was later the

first modern building to be declared aWorld Heritage Site by UNESCO.While

restoration continues the house is only partially open (and there’s no access at

present to the famous roof terrace), but even the dramatic facade is worth

walking past to see – there’s usually a gaggle of visitors trying to take a decent

snap from the confines of the narrow street.

At a time when architects sought to conceal the iron supports within

buildings, Gaudí turned them to his advantage, displaying them as decorative

features in the grand rooms on the main floor, which are lined with dark

marble hewn from the Güell family quarries. Columns, arches and ceilings

are all shaped, carved and twisted in an elaborate style that was to become

the hallmark of Gaudí’s later works. Even the basement stables bear Gaudí’s

distinct touch, a forest of brick capitals and arches that with a touch of

imagination become mushrooms and palms. Meanwhile the roof terrace

culminates in a fantastical series of chimneys decorated with swirling patterns

made from fragments of glazed tile, glass and earthenware.The family rarely

ventured up here – it was the servants instead who were exposed to the

fullest flight of Gaudí’s fantasy as they hung the washing out on lines hung

from chimney to chimney.

The building is under long-term restoration, which isn’t expected to be

completed until

2010.At

the time of writing, there was free access to view the

facade, ground floor and part of the basement, but with limited hours and

limited numbers allowed in at any one time, expect to queue or be given a

specific time-slot.

Església de Sant Pau del Camp

Carrer de Sant Pau cuts west through the Raval to the church of

Sant Pau del

Camp

(Mon 5–8pm, Tues–Fri 10am–1.30pm & 5–8pm, Sat 10am–1.30pm;

admission to cloister €2;

Paral.lel), its name – St Paul of the Field – a graphic

reminder that it once stood in open fields beyond the city walls. One of the

most interesting churches in Barcelona, Sant Pau was a Benedictine foundation

of the tenth century, built after its predecessor was destroyed in a Muslim raid

of 985 AD and constructed on a Greek cross plan. It was renovated again at the

end of the thirteenth century; above the main entrance are curious, primitive

carvings from that period of fish, birds and faces, while other animal forms

adorn the twin capitals of the charming twelfth-century cloister. Inside, the

High society at the Hotel España

There’s a hidden gem tucked around the back of the Liceu opera house, on the

otherwise fairly shabby c/de Sant Pau. Here, in the lower reaches of the Raval, some

of the most influential names in Catalan architecture and design came together at

the beginning of the twentieth century to transform the dowdy

Hotel España

(c/de

Sant Pau 9–11,

www.hotelespanya.com)

– originally built in 1860 – into one of the

city’s most lavish addresses. With a tiled dining room designed by Lluĺs Domènech

i Montaner, a bar with an amazing marble fireplace by Eusebi Arnau, and a ballroom

with a glass ceiling whose marine murals were executed by Ramon Casas, the hotel

was the fashionable sensation of its day. It’s been well looked after ever since, and

you can soak up the atmosphere and the decor for the price of lunch (there’s a

reasonably priced

menú del dia

) or even stay the night – though it has to be said that

the rooms are nowhere near as impressive as the public areas.

EL RAVAL

Església de Sant Pau del

Camp