Cultural Activity: Parc De La Ciutadella

     

Parc de la Ciutadella was one of the most beautiful and interesting parks that I've visited in both Barcelona and even Europe. Having its origins rooted in the 1888 World's Fair is a very interesting past for a park. This all set the stage for the building of such beautiful park features like the fountain based on the Trevi Fountain in Rome.

Cultural Activity: Segrada Familia

When talking about Barcelona the famous Segrada Familia is a building that needs no introduction. Antoni Gaudi's famous last work was one of the most interesting and overwhelming things I visited while in Barcelona. The cement behemoth is my favorite piece of architecture that I have seen while abroad. 

Cultural Activity: Museu de Frederic Mares

 The Museu de Frederic Mares is a museum that is very scattered across the board in terms of its focus on exhibitions. It houses massive collection of seemingly random items and artifacts from across time. Its most notable exhibit is the "collector's cabinet" which houses a mad man's infatuation with many different ways and object can be made. 

               

The museum also held a very cool assortment of medieval weapons, which I found to be really intriguing.

Field Trip: Medieval Barcelona

Santa Maria Del Mar and the Guilds

On February 20th we went on a field study to the the Ribera Quarter where all of the guilds of Barcelona were located. The guilds were the system in which people would train to be skilled professionals in certain areas of expertise. These included being a craftsman, ironworker and stone mason etc. These guild were also to govern how items would be priced, how workers would act, and what qualified them to do their job. 

Placa de Llana "The Plaza of Wool"Each street in the quarter had a specific craft made or service provided. Placa de la llana made wool, carrer de corders made rope, carrer de cotoners was where the clothing was made and Carrer del rec was where water was supplied.

Field Trip: Roman Barcino

Our first field study was to the ancient Roman city of Barcino dating back to 12 B.C. This field trip was my favorite of all the field studies I've taken part in. I find Roman history to be the most fascinating because of how technologically advanced they were for their time and how well they lived. These photos above first show the column building techniques of the period and second the pottery skills for eating and storing food during the period.

The photo on the left shows how the ancient Romans made dies for their clothing and the photo on the right shows the massive basins for making "Garum" a fermented fish sauce that was used on fish during the period.