Flowers That Never Wither

 20th century is full of beautiful architecture with organic motives in it, especially in Barcelona. The most common architects of catalan modernism, who followed these organic motives are Antonio Gaudi, Lluís Domènech i Montaner and famous houses like Casa Batllo, La Pedrera, Casa Lleó Morera, but these buildings are known for everyone. Exactly everybody knows flowers, leaves and other organic shapes and motives of these houses, but not everybody knows that there are also some places, some buildings, which were also done in Catalan Modernism, which also have very powerful organic shapes, but the only difference is that they were not done by famous architects and this article is exactly about these interesting buildings.

 I took a walk on Career de Girona. There were so many wonderful, exciting buildings. Actually, the thing, which grabbed my attention was that all doors of these buildings and facade near doors had different kind of floral ornaments, around them. Some time ago, I read very interesting dissertation on topic: “Allegoric symbols of the floral motives compositions of architecture”, by Russian Doctor of History and Art E.K.Blinova, which she wrote in 2011, and from it I understood that floral ornaments in architecture are not just for beauty, they also have a meaning, and some flowers have specific symbolisation, not just in floral world, but also in world of architecture. 

 On picture on the right, you can see doors of a building, which is located on Carrer de Girona,1. It has an organic ornament around, on the facade. You can see that these are long leaves, not exactly flowers. These leaves cover the wooden doors from all sides. These are oak branches. To understand their meaning I will quote a dialogue from a very good book, which I think everybody read in the childhood :

“ - Do you ever get scared? - asked Alice. - You are absolutely all alone here, nobody protects you...

- What do you mean “alone” ? - said the Rose. - Than, what is the oak stays here for?”

Novel “ Alice in Wonderland ”, by Lewis Carroll, 1865.

 From this quote it is clear that oak is the defender, this tree is a symbol of safety and protection. So, these oak branches are covering doors of the building, like a sphere, it means that these branches are defenders of the building, also sphere is a symbol of safety, as well, as oak, and together they create a kind of mascot for this building. I think that when this kind of decoration has meaning it makes building way more beautiful, gives kind of history and soul to it.

 On pictures in the middle of the page, you can see one more building, which is located on Carrer de Girona, 22. I was amazed by it because of its beauty. It is full of organic ornaments all over it, from bottom to top. This building is typical house of catalan modernism; as you can see, there are no straight lines or corners – everything is slight and curvy. As you can see, there is a column, which is done in shape of a real tree, it looks very beautiful and massive at the same time. This tree-column symbolise the long-live, strength and powerful beauty, which means that this building will stay strong and beautiful very long. Moreover, as you can see on Picture 3, there are many balconies with many other organic ornaments, which also have some oak branches, as previous building, so it means that this building is under the protection, in safety. What is more interesting thing is that, as you can see on Picture 3, the red-column continues under all balconies of the building, till the very end as if it was supporting all balconies, even small ones. I really liked this unusual and wonderful building.

 On pictures on the bottom of the page, there is massive wooden door, and you can also see this door in zoom. This building is located on Career de Girona, 9. On these pictures you can see flowers of extraordinary shape. These iron flowers make wooden door look beautiful, but also they symbolise wealth and luxury, which means that this building was probably house of rich people. Even that door is made of wood and flowers of other, quite stronger material, shows their powerful and rich nature. What is more, there are some oak branches again. They are wooden, and if you noticed they somehow support the iron flowers, so it means that wealth of this house is in safety. 

 Actually, Career de Girona is full of interesting buildings, I offer you to take a walk through it and look around, so you can discover more interesting architectures yourself.

Bibliography:
Some additional sources, which I read to get more information to develop the topic.

Book “Flowers in Legends and Myths”, by Russian writer N.F.Zolotnitskiy, 1913 
Dissertation on topic: “Allegoric symbols of the floral motives compositions of architecture”, by Russian Doctor of History and Art E.K.Blinova, 2011
Book “Modern Architecture in Barcelona”, by David Mackay, 1854-1939