Mind House (Barcelona, Spain)

 The most popular work of the famous architect Gaudi in Barcelona is Park Güell, located just a few steps from Gracia, on a hill in the suburb of Vallcarca. In 1900 Euzebi Guell bought this hill in order to arrange there a private garden city in English style. The areas in the park were designed to be sold for building the mansions and all the infrastructure and public places Guell commissioned to Gaudi. However, the project failed: for those who wanted to live in Barcelona, the park was too far from the center, but for those who wished to live outside the city it was too close. As a result, Güell’s heirs sold the hill to city authorities, who opened the park to the public.

The gate of the park is framed with two gingerbread houses; one is topped with the toadstool, the other has a toadstool and a cross-shaped window on the front wall. This house is called the Mind House, which is considered to be in the list of top 10 creative buildings of the world. The house has three floors and an attic, its roof is studded and painted in a checked white and gray pattern. Mind House looks like a fairy tale dwelling, although its primary purpose today is hosting a gallery. Outside the gates there are wide staircase with the fountains, Catalonian coat of arms and a huge mosaic lizard, which has become the symbol of Barcelona. Staircase leads to the top of the hill where the huge terrace is positioned, surrounded by the long winding bench. The park terrace serves as a roof for the hall, embed in the hill, which vaults support 86 Doric columns.

The last thing that Gaudi managed to do in the park is to pave the ingenious system of roads, on which future tenants would have to drive up their mansions and to build several whimsical stone arches, which pillars are inclined to the hill under the most improbable corners.

Of the seven dozen homes that were planned to be built in a park only two (including the Mind House) were built for the Güell’s money, as promotional samples. In one of these houses, Gaudi has been living with his father and niece for 20 years, performing an everyday walk from the house to the construction place, until he moved out a few months before his death. The Mind House-museum of Gaudi was open in the building, exhibiting personal property and other private items of the architect, sketches of projects he didn’t have time to implement, and furniture, designed by him for the Guell Palace, Calvet and Batlló House.

 Source: http://www.glamvalley.com/creative-real-estate/mind-house-in-barcelona/
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