Synopses & Reviews
Barcelona is Robert Hughes's monumentally informed and irresistibly opinionated guide to the most un-Spanish city in Spain. Hughes scrolls through Barcelona's often violent history; tells the stories of its kings, poets, magnates, and revolutionaries; and ushers readers through municipal landmarks that range from Antoni Gaudi's sublimely surreal cathedral to a postmodern restaurant with a glass-walled urinal. The result is a work filled with the attributes of Barcelona itself: proportion, humor, and seny the Catalan word for triumphant common sense.
Review
"Confirms...Mr. Hughes's authority as a first-rate chronicler and historian. The book is destined to become, like Forster's Alexandria and Mary McCarthy's Venice Observed, a classic." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Authoritative, carefully researched, and full of insights into the city's great heritage...his judgments are full of tolerant and good-humored fascination....There is no single volume in either Catalan or Spanish that approaches this book in scope or detail...a superb achievement and a great pleasure to read." Washington Post Book World
Review
"Brilliant...an extraordinary book that combines history, criticism of the arts and architecture, and a profound sympathy for the moral essence of a people." New York Newsday
Synopsis
A monumentally informed and irresistibly opinionated guide to the most un-Spanish city in Spain, from the bestselling author of The Fatal Shore.
In these pages, Robert Hughes scrolls through Barcelona's often violent history; tells the stories of its kings, poets, magnates, and revolutionaries; and ushers readers through municipal landmarks that range from Antoni Gaudi's sublimely surreal cathedral to a postmodern restaurant with a glass-walled urinal. The result is a work filled with the attributes of Barcelona itself: proportion, humor, andseny the Catalan word for triumphant common sense."
Synopsis
Barcelona is Robert Hughes's monumentally informed and irresistibly opinionated guide to the most un-Spanish city in Spain. Hughes scrolls through Barcelona's often violent history; tells the stories of its kings, poets, magnates, and revolutionaries; and ushers readers through municipal landmarks that range from Antoni Gaudi's sublimely surreal cathedral to a postmodern restaurant with a glass-walled urinal. The result is a work filled with the attributes of Barcelona itself: proportion, humor, and seny -- the Catalan word for triumphant common sense.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [543]-552) and index.