Architectural Posters of Spain

Spanish Architecture: Alhambra, El Escorial and Barcelona

These architectural posters connect three periods and three very different concepts of space. The Nasrid palaces of the Alhambra unfold through courtyards, water, light and exquisitely worked surfaces; El Escorial translates Philip II’s understanding of power and faith into a severe monumental order. Barcelona, meanwhile, presents two radically new paths into modernity in Antoni Gaudí’s Modernisme and Mies van der Rohe’s Pavilion. Historical views, site plans, sections and elevations make these contrasts immediately comparable.

AP 521 · Antoni Gaudí: Architecture as a Total Work of Art

AP 521 surveys Antoni Gaudí’s work from the early houses to the Sagrada Família. Elevations, plans, sections, interiors and details are presented on equal terms, showing that Gaudí did not understand architecture as an external shell. Structure, space, furniture, ceramics, ironwork and symbolic ornament form a coherent whole. His buildings combine Catalan traditions and craft techniques with the constructional possibilities of the industrial age.

Seven works by Gaudí in and around Barcelona are now UNESCO World Heritage properties, including Park Güell, Palau Güell, Casa Milà, Casa Vicens, Casa Batlló, parts of the Sagrada Família and the Crypt of the Colònia Güell. The survey sheet makes the range of his highly personal Modernisme clear, from colourful, almost fabulous surfaces to geometrically developed vaults, inclined supports and spatial models with which Gaudí investigated complex paths of structural force.

AP 522 and AP 554 · Park Güell, Trencadís and Roofscapes

In 1900, Eusebi Güell commissioned Gaudí to create a garden city on the barren site of today’s Park Güell. The residential venture was not commercially successful, but its roads, viaducts, entrance buildings, hypostyle hall and great square became a new kind of union between architecture and landscape. AP 522 concentrates on the trencadís of the square’s undulating bench. Fragments of tiles, plates and other ceramics form abstract rhythms, flowers, stars and lettering. Developed with Gaudí’s collaborators, especially Josep Maria Jujol, the bench was completed in 1914.

AP 554 turns the gaze upwards. Photographs of towers, chimneys, ventilation shafts and stair exits show how Gaudí transformed technical elements into sculptural figures. Glazed ceramics, natural stone and modelled mortar protect the construction while giving each termination its own silhouette. On the roofs of Casa Batlló and Casa Milà in particular, this creates a walkable sculpture landscape poised between functional component, natural form and symbol.

AP 380 · Casa Milà – La Pedrera

Rosario Segimon and Pere Milà commissioned Gaudí in 1906 to design their residential and apartment building on Passeig de Gràcia; it was completed in 1912. AP 380 shows the long, undulating stone façade, whose openings and wrought-iron balconies appear to be cut into a continuous wall of rock. The nickname “La Pedrera” – the quarry – originally referred mockingly to this unusual effect.

Behind the freely modelled outer skin is an advanced system of columns and beams that largely eliminates load-bearing partitions between the apartments. Two large courtyards bring light and air deep into the complex, while ramps serve the basement garage. On the roof, stair exits, ventilation and chimneys are concealed within sculptural forms. Gaudí’s last major civil work thus combines adaptable plans, technical innovation and ornamental invention.

AP 528 and AP 237 · Barcelona’s Urban Space and the Pavilion of Modernity

AP 528 documents Les Rambles as continuous sequences of façades on both sides of the promenade between Plaça de Catalunya and the harbour. The route follows the edge of the medieval city; the former watercourse was diverted after the Raval wall was built in the fifteenth century. From this boundary zone developed Barcelona’s most famous promenade. Rather than isolating individual monuments, the poster records the urban continuity of hotels, homes and shops, theatres and public institutions along the five sections of Canaletes, Estudis, Sant Josep, Caputxins and Santa Mònica.

AP 237 contrasts this dense street space with the open plan of the Barcelona Pavilion. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich designed it as Germany’s contribution to the 1929 International Exposition. Slender columns support a flat roof slab, while freestanding walls of glass, travertine, marble and onyx guide movement without dividing the interior into enclosed rooms. Pools extend the architecture through reflections. Dismantled after the exposition, the Pavilion was reconstructed on its original site between 1983 and 1986. The poster combines elevation and plan, making the independence of supporting structure and spatial boundaries especially clear.

AP 120, AP 121, AP 308, AP 238 and AP 570 · El Escorial

Philip II founded El Escorial in 1563 as a monastery, royal residence, centre of learning and dynastic pantheon. Juan Bautista de Toledo devised the complex overall plan; after his death, Juan de Herrera brought the work to completion. The final stone was laid in 1584. Behind the long, almost unornamented granite fronts are a church, monastery, palace, college, seminary and library, ordered around numerous courtyards. The severe architecture known as the Herrerian style broke with earlier Spanish traditions and remained influential for decades.

The five posters explore this immense complex from different viewpoints. AP 120 is a historical bird’s-eye view in which courtyards, gardens and the central basilica interact spatially. AP 121 develops the complex as a long side elevation. AP 308 combines the plan with four coloured façades, explaining the relationship between internal organisation and external enclosure. AP 238 isolates the church front with dome and bell towers; AP 570 presents the extensive overall elevation above which the basilica rises as the spiritual and compositional centre. El Escorial has been a UNESCO World Heritage property since 1984.

AP 214, AP 119, AP 407 and AP 567 · The Nasrid Palaces of the Alhambra

From the thirteenth century, the Alhambra developed into the fortified palatine city of the Nasrids above Granada. The site plan in AP 214 shows how the Alcazaba, palaces, residential and administrative quarters, gardens and fortifications occupy the long plateau. The ensemble does not follow a single symmetrical master plan; it grew from interrelated courtyards, groups of rooms, routes and watercourses. This integration of architecture, topography, irrigation and vegetation makes the Alhambra a uniquely preserved example of a medieval Islamic palace city.

AP 119 records a richly ornamented façade of the Comares Palace. Geometric tile mosaics, plasterwork, calligraphy and delicately articulated window zones turn the wall into a layered, almost textile surface. AP 407 cuts through the Court of the Lions, showing its slender arcades between the tall halls of the palace completed under Muhammad V around 1380. AP 567 focuses on the Hall of the Two Sisters: above the square room, a muqarnas dome grows from a central star into thousands of prismatic cells. Light from the windows at its base makes the solid construction appear to dissolve into a hovering celestial vault.

AP 710 · The Palace of Charles V in the Alhambra

After the Christian conquest of Granada in 1492, the Alhambra remained a royal residence. Emperor Charles V commissioned a new Renaissance palace at the heart of the complex, begun by Pedro Machuca around 1527. AP 710 shows its rigorously articulated exterior façade: rustication and round windows characterise the lower storey, while pilasters, windows and relief medallions order the upper level. Behind the almost square exterior lies the surprising geometry of a circular, two-storey colonnaded courtyard.

The palace confronts the intimate, richly ornamented spaces of the Nasrids with monumental geometry derived from Italian models. This immediate proximity also makes the Alhambra a document of cultural change: medieval Islamic palace art and humanist Renaissance architecture survive not separately, but as a charged historical relationship. The Alhambra and Generalife entered the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1984; the Albayzín was added in 1994.