Guell Park

One of the most famous people from Barcelona is Gaudy. And one of the most recognizable places in Barcelona is Guell Park, which was designed by Gaudy! It's super cool! Gaudy was a devout Catholic and believed God to be the ultimate architect. Mountains and trees, he held, were the most beautiful architecture of all. So, in his designs, he always makes the outside columns slanted, like a mountain or cliff face, and the tops of columns always open up like trees.

 In one structure, rocks even hung down from the ceiling.

The park acts as a gray water filter, with the water going down the columns from the terraces above, and then the water harvested is pumped to the plants, making a self sustaining beautiful garden in the middle of a naturally dry spot of Barcelona.

Religious motifs are highly ubiquitous in his work. He has a fountain in the park modeled after a Salamander. I had guessed that since salamanders are fire creatures, they would be associated with Hell and the devil. But, interestingly, because they're born from hot coals, they're the only creatures that can take the battle to the devil's doorstep. He has the Salamander fountain as a protection, keeping the park untouched from evil's influence.

Gaudy designed a couple houses to reflect churches, hoping that the homes would be as holy as the chapels.

Gaudy was a little quirky. Some of his quirks made him brilliant- like when he designed furniture, he would finish shaping it with the person he was selling it to sit in it, so it would be the a custom, beautiful, comfortable chair. Others of his quirks brought him to unfortunate circumstances- he famously hated cars and would walk down the middle of the streets, expecting the cars to wait for him and move around him. Eventually, he was run over by a trolley and died.