Cripta de la Colònia Güell (Gaudí's Crypt)

About Cripta de la Colònia Güell (Gaudí's Crypt)

Cripta de la Colònia Güell is a unique church that Gaudí designed for the workers' of the village at Colònia Güell. Unfortunately only the crypt that was meant to sit beneath the main church, was ever built. Work on the church started in 1908, but stopped roughly 10 years later when the Güell family cut off the money. This left the majority of the church incomplete. Within the crypt area is where Gaudí experimented with the ideas for the Sagrada Família. From the outside it is a low, dark building of rough grey stone and brown brick sitting in a park filled with pine trees. The front features an intricate porch with rows of bricks that twist and fold like a piece of cloth. Inside, four leaning columns of black basalt hold up a ceiling of brick ribs, and the windows are shaped like flower petals and filled with glass in strong blue, yellow, red, and green. Both inside and out, everywhere you look you'll discover something new that you didn't notice the first time you looked around. The best place to start is with shooting the porch. You can use a wide lens from the steps to take in the whole run of folded rows. Then slowly move inside and switch to a shorter zoom lens to highlight the columns against the brick. The interior is dim, so when direct sun comes through the coloured glass it spreads patches of colour across the floor and the stone. A bright afternoon is better for capturing the inside, while an overcast day gives you flat, even light that works better on the exterior. Colònia Güell is a short train ride from Barcelona on the FGC line from Plaça d'Espanya, and the crypt is a few minutes' walk through the village from the station. There is an entry fee to access this shooting location and there are photography rules about using tripods, so make sure to check when you buy your ticket. While you are in the area, take some time to explore the village streets. (Santa Coloma de Cervelló, Catalonia, Spain)

Where to find Cripta de la Colònia Güell (Gaudí's Crypt)

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