Fundacio Joan Miro

Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona.

A very impressive building, situated on the Montjuic hill, the work of architect Josep Lluis Sert, Corbusier's student and a key example of rationalist architecture.  The clear and cubistic shapes are all in white, making the museum building look light and flowing and make the rooms look larger. The offset arrangement of the inner rooms, interfused by bright patios and terraces create dynamic, transparency and a lot of natural light in the inside of the building. For Sert the core eloements were flexibility and movement, without losing spatial continuity. As a result, the visitors are given the opportunity to experience the artwork in diffrerent ways, depending on which room they are approaching the objects from.

Personage by Joan Miro by the main entrance.

Miro's sculptures are to be found all over the building, in the many courtyards, the roof, the terraces

One of the terraces, on the first floor

Joan Miro, Lluna, Sol I una Estrella

and the city spread out in front of us

Inside, the museum is built on different levels.

Halfway through looking at the exhibits we were able to access the roof via double glass doors

looking down at the courtyard where the chair which we had looked at earlier is situated

fantastic views of the city

zooming in - I never found out what this is on top of the hill

The roof is as complex as the building and from here we could see more of the structure 

Lots of Miro's sculptures here, all of them brightly coloured and fun

looking closer

The whole structure of the building is quite amazing

looking at the sculpture from the side you can see part of it is a stool

looking down at the inner courtyard

which we eventually went down to as this is where the cafe is situated.  The inner courtyard which is in the middle of the building, and which all the rooms are centrifugically arranged to, is a typical Catalan feature and is also found in all of the Gaudi buildings I have visited.

More Miro sculptures here

And a chance to see more of the conplex structure of this building. 

We had a hot drink and a rest here and then moved on to explore the grounds.

There is a quiet, peaceful garden on the side of the building. 

I now am not sure whether it's the building's garden, or an adjoining small park, one of many that are situated on Montjuic.

Lots of sculptures around

After wandering around for a while

we left and started walking down the hill towards the Museum of Catalan Art and then the Mies Van der Rohe pavillion which you can see here