10 things you didn’t know about Park Güell
As you know, Parc Güelll is one of the Barcelona’s icons and it’s almost obligatory to go up there and visit it. So much so that there is no day that is not filled with tourists. It’s also a paradigmatic example of an architectural style, modernism, with its architect Antoni Gaudí.
But every work has its curiosities and we are going to reveal them in 2 parts. Here are the first five curiosities.
# 1 Why Park Güell?
Well, the initial denomination was “Park Güell” by the British influence that had the project. However, it was not a park but an exclusive urbanization project, as a garden city and its promoter was Eusebi Güell, a rich Catalan businessman of good bourgeois family, that’s why the park is named after him.
In addition, he was an intimate friend and patron of Gaudí, who commissioned several of the works done by the modernist architect.
# 2 Business not profitable.
As mentioned earlier, the functionality was not that of a public park but of a garden that housed different houses that would be sold to the Catalan upper class. But only two of a total of 60 were sold. Even Gaudí lived in one of them for some years. In the absence of buyers, the works were abandoned when only 3 of the houses had been built.
This was how what had to be an urbanization ended up being a large garden open to the city.
# 3 The columns.
The Hall of the Hundred Columns, also called Sala Hipóstila, is not a very exact name since in reality it has only 86. It was created to serve as market to the new neighbors of the urbanization, but before the failed, the room serves as support to the upper esplanade.
The lower part of the columns is ceramic to facilitate the cleaning tasks of the market.
# 4 Limited entry.
Although access is free, you pay for entering the monumental area and you must request an appointment in advance because access is controlled, only 400 people are admitted at a time.
But people registered in Barcelona come free and without an appointment, as long as they have previously registered in the Gaudir mes program.
# 5 Ecological project.
With the urbanization was expected to collect the water from the rain through the columns of the Sala Hipóstila, in which underneath would install a deposit to store it and exit through the mouth of the dragon in the event that the tank was filled.
We hope you have learned from these curiosities. In the next article will reveal the remaining.
Now every time you pass Park Güell you will see it with different eyes.
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