Semana Santa 1: Apples to Apples

Alright, time to start chronicling my adventures over Holy Week, which is when Spanish students get their Spring Break.  This is going to be the first post of a series, which I hope to finish before the week is over.  So here we go...

The story starts on the evening of Thursday, April 10th, with me stuffing everything I'm going to need for the week into a duffel bag and catching a night train from Madrid to Barcelona.  When I rolled into town, I holstered my trusty camera, stowed my bag in a locker at the station, grabbed a map of the city, and stepped out into the brisk morning air.

My sightseeing plan in Barcelona largely revolved around the works of Antoni Gaudí, one of the most prominent architects of the Modernist style.  The city was actually home to quite a few famous Modernist architects, including a couple of Gaudí's contemporaries: Luis Domenech i Montaner and Josep Puig i Cadafalch.

But before we go anywhere, what is Modernism?  Well, funny that you should ask.  Basically, it's a school of architecture born in the late 1800s, thanks to the Industrial Revolution.  The Modernist style was designed to take advantage of the availability of new materials, such as iron and glass, to construct buildings that would have previously been thought impossible.  This new-found freedom also meant more variety between the styles of individual architects, as you are about to see.  Below are three houses from Barcelona's famous "Block of Discord."  And yes, as a matter of fact, they were designed by the three architects that I mentioned earlier.

La Casa Amatller by Puig i Cadafalch

La Casa Lleó Morera by Domenech i Montaner

La Casa Batlló by Gaudí

Why is it called the "Block of Discord"?  Well, one reason is that the vastly different styles of the three architects don't really mesh all that well.  Keep in mind that two of these houses were actually next door neighbors and the other one is only a couple doors down the street.  For a different perspective on the stylistic differences, check out these close-ups of the windows of each house:

Windows are such a pane.

Cadafalch chooses a more traditional Spanish look, Montaner goes for a sort of neoclassical feel, and who even knows what on earth Gaudí is up to because that crazy building doesn't look like anything that anyone has ever seen before (actually, Gaudí did this a lot).

However, the main reason why this street is called the "Block of Discord" is actually a little more subtle and a lot more clever.  It revolves around the Spanish translation of the word 'block.'  In Latin America, the word for 'block' is 'cuadro', but here in Spain, we use the word 'manzana' instead.  So the literal name in Spanish is "La Manzana de la Discordia."  Now, if you were paying attention in Spanish class, you should know that 'manzana' is also the word for 'apple.'  And if you're familiar with Greek mythology, you might remember that the Apple of Discord was given to Paris, who was then supposed to award it to the fairest of three goddesses (Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite).

And now you see the parallel: a mythological contest between the three most well-known Greek goddesses and a bit of a rivalry between the three most well-known Modernist architects.  And at the core of both competitions, a single 'apple.'

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