Park Güell

Park Güell began as a property venture. In 1900 the industrialist Eusebi Güell, a patron of Antoni Gaudí, commissioned a garden-city development on a bare hillside above Barcelona, with about sixty plots meant for villas set among landscaped paths. Very few buyers came, only two houses were ever built, and work stopped around 1914. The city later bought the estate and opened it as a public park in 1926. Gaudí himself lived in one of the two houses from 1906, and it is now the Casa Museu Gaudí (Gaudí House Museum), a small museum of his furniture and drawings, close to where Gaudí’s ideas took form. The park is among the most visited sights in Catalonia and Spain. The park forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site listing for the Works of Antoni Gaudí.

The ticketed Monumental Zone holds the set pieces. A double stair leads up from the entrance, passing the colourful mosaic salamander fountain, often called the dragon, towards the Hypostyle Room, a forest of Doric columns that was planned as a market hall. Above it sits the large terrace edged by the serpentine bench, a long undulating seat covered in broken ceramic mosaic (trencadís) shaped so that people sitting on it face each other. Josep Maria Jujol worked with Gaudí on much of the tile work. Two gatehouse pavilions at the entrance, with their roofs of mushroom-like cupolas, look like something from a fairy story.

Gaudí built the infrastructure out of the hill’s own stone. Viaducts with leaning columns carry the paths, and arcades resemble caves or tree trunks, so the structures seem grown rather than built. The planting, the retaining walls and the drainage were designed together, which is why the place feels more like a landscape than a conventional park.

The views from the upper levels reach across the rooftops towards the Mediterranean Sea, and on clear days you can pick out the spires of Sagrada Família in the distance. The hill is steep, and the free areas of woodland and walkways around the monument zone are good for a quieter stroll. The park sits on the Carmel hillside near the La Salut neighbourhood. The nearest metro stops need a fairly steep uphill walk, so comfortable shoes help.

Entry to the Monumental Zone is by timed ticket, so book ahead through the official site, especially in busy seasons. Park Güell pairs well with Casa Batlló or Sagrada Família for anyone wanting to follow Gaudí across the city, and it suits families as well as architecture enthusiasts who enjoy being outdoors.