To the north of the Barcelona district of Gràcia lies an urban park. Gaudí planned and directed the construction of a garden suburb, the Park Güell (1900-1914), for Eusebio Güell as the infrastructure and facilities for a residential garden city based on English models. Park Güell was intended for sixty single-family residential living units, isolated in a sunny area in a country estate on the Montaña Pelada, in the Tres Turons district of Barcelona. The project, however, was unsuccessful and the park became city property in 1923. Still, it is one of Gaudí's most colorful and playful works even though it was never fully completed.
Two pavillions at the main entrance, the porter's lodge and the
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Two pavillions at the main entrance, the porter's lodge and the administration, complete the wall surrounding the park. These pavilions are of stone with rooms of Catalan vaults of flat-laid brick finished with pieces of broken ceramic called trencadís. The ceramic trencadís follows the sinuous geometric surfaces, a device which gives all of the park's ornamentation a unique beauty. Each of the roofs is crowned by a small dome and above all stands a tall, spiral-shaped tower adorned with colorful tile and topped with Gaudí's characteristic four-branched cross.
A grand stairway, divided by the often photographed mythological figure of a lizard, leads to the large hypostyle hall meant to be a local market for the use of the inhabitants of the park, and also to the large lookout plaza, which formed the roof of the market. The most outstanding element of the plaza is the balustrade and bench in combination, which set the limits of the plaza above the colonnade. The extraordinary balustrade-bench twists in serpentine manner to form winding courses, recesses, and small semi-enclosed areas where the facing of brightly colored trencadís creates a spectacular collage of color and texture. For the creation of this winding bench and the beautiful keystones of the hypostyle market place, Gaudí had the collaboration of the architect Josep Maria Jujol.
It is in Park Güell that references to historical styles have been abandoned by Gaudí, who now makes use of complex geometrical forms and the splendor of the colour and the finishes constitute the most specific aspect of the contribution of Gaudí to the Modernista blossoming of the turn of the century. In the park stands the house which Gaudí had built for his own use, the work of his disciple Francesc Berenguer (1905). The house has since been converted into the Casa-Museu Gaudí. The museum has notable examples of furnishings designed by Gaudí as well as personal memorabilia. Park Güell was declared a place of World Heritage by UNESCO in 1984.
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