Barcelona's Gaudí: The Architect Who Reinvented a City

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet was born in Reus, Catalonia, in 1852 and spent almost his entire career in Barcelona, where he developed an architectural style so distinctive and so personal that it defies categorisation. His buildings — organic, colourful, and structurally innovative — draw on Gothic architecture, Moorish decoration, and the forms of nature to produce structures that look like nothing else in the world.

The Sagrada Família is Gaudí's masterpiece and one of the most extraordinary buildings in the world — a basilica that has been under construction since 1882 and is still not complete, though the projected completion date is now 2026. The building combines Gothic verticality with Art Nouveau decoration and Gaudí's own structural innovations — the branching columns that support the nave ceiling, the hyperboloid vaults, the stained glass that fills the interior with coloured light — in a composition of overwhelming complexity and beauty.

The Park Güell, on the hill above the Gràcia neighbourhood, is Gaudí's most playful work — a public park of mosaic terraces, gingerbread gatehouses, and a forest of stone columns that was originally designed as a garden city for the Barcelona bourgeoisie. The main terrace, covered in broken ceramic tiles (trencadís) in a mosaic of extraordinary colour, offers the finest view of Barcelona and the sea.

The Casa Batlló and the Casa Milà (La Pedrera), both on the Passeig de Gràcia, are Gaudí's finest domestic buildings — the Casa Batlló with its dragon-scale roof and bone-like facade, the Casa Milà with its undulating stone exterior and rooftop of chimneys that look like warriors in helmets. Both are open to visitors, and the rooftop of the Casa Milà, particularly at sunset, is one of the finest architectural experiences in Barcelona.

The Gothic Quarter (Barri Gòtic) is the oldest part of Barcelona — a medieval neighbourhood of narrow streets, Roman walls, and Gothic churches that predates Gaudí by several centuries. The Barcelona Cathedral, the Plaça Reial, and the remains of the Roman temple of Augustus are the principal sights, but the best way to experience the Gothic Quarter is simply to walk its streets without a map and see what you find.

The food of Barcelona is among the finest in Spain — a cuisine that combines the Catalan tradition of mar i muntanya (sea and mountain) with the influence of the city's cosmopolitan character. The Boqueria market, on the Rambla, is the finest food market in Spain, and the restaurants of the Eixample and the Barceloneta neighbourhood offer everything from traditional Catalan cooking to the avant-garde cuisine of the chefs who trained under Ferran Adrià at El Bulli.

The best time to visit Barcelona is in spring (April to June) or autumn (September to October), when the weather is warm and the city is at its most beautiful. The summer months (July and August) are the hottest and the most crowded — the city receives 12 million tourists per year — but also the most festive, with the Gràcia Festival in August filling the neighbourhood's streets with elaborate decorations. The Sagrada Família is best visited on a weekday morning, when the tour groups are thinner and the light through the stained glass is at its finest.