Manel Armengol
The Garden of the Warriors
Nancy Brokaw
In 1980, Manel Armengol moved into La Pedrera, Casa Milà,
and in silence because he did not want to disturb the neighbours
an apartment block designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí.
below. But his evenings transported him, conjuring primal memories
Like all Gaudí’s mature buildings, La Pedrera is a work of personal
of a mythic time.
imagination, inspired by natural forms. It is famous for its undulating
Upon finding twenty or thirty rolls of expired slide film in his
ceilings, curved corridors, columns, courtyards, wrought-iron balco-
refrigerator, Armengol decided to experiment. During these nightly
nies, and a rooftop garden populated with enigmatic helmeted figures
excursions, he started to take long night exposures in the darkening
that stand guard over the architect’s dream castle.
light. He found that the expired tungsten film produced an intense,
On Armengol’s first visit to La Pedrera, a friend had slipped
mystical blue, while his daylight film produced earthy, ochre tones. As
him a key to the roof and it was thus that he made his first acquain-
such, with its maze of stairways and groupings of warriors, the roof-
tance with the Garden of Warriors. For Armengol, the roof evoked
top created an enigmatic landscape, evocative of a gateway between
thoughts of primordial times—of Genesis and the Ramayana—but also
heaven and earth, this world and the next, life, death and rebirth.
of Gaston Bachelard and his exploration of the poetics of space, of
Although these photographs were taken in secrecy and for
the ways that the places we inhabit shape our deepest thoughts and
private use, a few years later they would enter the light of day. La
desires.
Pedrera would change hands, and the new owners effect a restora-
Every night, Armengol would make his way up to the top of
tion. Upon the unveiling of Gaudí’s masterpiece reborn, it was Armen-
La Pedrera and photograph the imposing figures that he found there.
gol’s photographs that would appear in the tribute book entitled The
Today, it is with fondness that he recalls these nightly visits. They were
Garden of the Warriors.
conducted in secrecy because his access to the key was unofficial
As soon as he had moved into Antoni Gaudí’s apartment building La Pedrera, the Barcelona-based photographer Manel Armengol climbed up to the rooftop of the Garden of Warriors and, using expired film, began to
shoot the surreal landscape that he discovered there. The images he captured depicted enigmatic figures that
seemed to emer