The Picasso Museum in Barcelona.
It was pouring on the day we visited the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. Such rain! The narrow streets of the district had turned into rivers and rain poured on our heads as we were trying to negotiate our way. So, I did not see much of it, nothing of the outside, but it's such a gorgeous building, buildings I should say, so I want to record the little I saw of it.
The museum is housed in five adjoining medieval palaces on the Montcada Street in the La Ribera district in the Gothic Quarter. The palaces date from the 13th and 14th centuries, occupying a total area of 10,628 sqm.
The buildings follow the style of Gothic civil Catalan. Each of the buildings are built following a similar pattern, around a courtyard equipped with an exterior staircase that allows access to the main floors.
We walked through wonderful vaulted passages
The man himself
spiral staircase
After we finished looking at the exhibits and before moving on to the Moco Museum which is next door, we stopped at the Cafe Pablo
nice place, it was good stopping here.
Did Picasso select the buildings he wanted for his museum? The rooms that survived were glamorous, as you showed, but Picasso wasn't very gothic.
ReplyDeletePicasso did not select the building, his friend and secretary Jaume Sabartes suggested it because of Picasso's long-standing connections with the city. As you say, Hels, there is no connection between Picasso's art and the architecture of the museum. Moco, the Museum of Contemporary art which is next door, is of the same style, so the contrast is even more pronounced.
DeleteHi eirne.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful buildings. I think I've also been to the Gothic quarter. I love the stoney effect on almost every surface. If I'm right, Picasso spent his early formative years in Barcelona before heading off to Paris. So presumably the museum houses his early works? Is that right?
Also, are you going to the Tate exhibition on Picasso? Or have you been? :)
I am absolutely certain Liam that you must have been to the Gothic quarter when you visited Barcelona - you could not have missed it.
DeleteAnd you are right, the majority of the exhibits in the museum are of his early works - the rest is all over the world in other museums. But, exhibited are also the work he did on Velasquez' Las Meninas, which I found fascinating.
As for the Picasso exhibition at the Tate, I am in Greece at the moment so have not been able to go. I do intend to see the exhibition, but there is so much in London at the moment that I must, I must, see, and I fear that I might not be able to do all of it.