Barcelona

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 t [...]
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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.



"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

"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

"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