Antoni Gaudí
Antoni Gaudí i Cornet or Antonio Gaudí (Reus or Riudoms, June 25, 1852-Barcelona, June 10, 1926) was a Spanish architect, maximum representative of Catalan modernism.
Gaudí was an architect with an innate sense of geometry and volume, as well as a great imaginative capacity that allowed him to mentally project most of his works before transferring them to plans. In fact, he seldom made detailed plans of his works; he preferred to recreate them on three-dimensional models, modeling all the details as he mentally devised them. On other occasions, he was improvising as he went, giving instructions to his collaborators on what they should do.
Endowed with a strong intuition and creative capacity, Gaudí conceived his buildings in a global way, paying attention to both structural solutions and functional and decorative ones. He studied even the smallest detail of his creations, integrating into architecture a whole series of crafts that he himself mastered to perfection: ceramics, glasswork, iron forging, carpentry, etc. Likewise, he introduced new techniques in the treatment of materials, such as his famous trencadís made with pieces of discarded ceramics.
After a few beginnings influenced by neo-Gothic art, as well as certain oriental trends, Gaudí led to modernism in its most effervescent period, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. However, the architect from Reus went beyond orthodox modernism, creating a personal style based on the observation of nature, the fruit of which was his use of regulated geometric shapes, such as the hyperbolic paraboloid, the hyperboloid, the helicoid, and the conoid.
Gaudi's architecture is marked by a strong personal stamp, characterized by the search for new structural solutions, which he achieved after a lifetime dedicated to the analysis of the optimal structure of the building, integrated into its surroundings and being a synthesis of all arts and crafts. Through the study and practice of new and original solutions, Gaudí's work will culminate in an organic style, inspired by nature, but without losing the experience provided by previous styles, generating an architectural work that is a perfect symbiosis of tradition and the innovation. Likewise, all of his work is marked by what were his four great passions in life: architecture, nature, religion and love for Catalonia.
Over time, Gaudí's work has achieved wide international diffusion, with innumerable studies dedicated to his way of understanding architecture. Today he is admired by both professionals and the general public: the Sagrada Familia is currently one of the most visited monuments in Spain.Between 1984 and 2005, seven of his works became UNESCO World Heritage Sites..
Beauty is the glow of truth, and as art is beauty, without truth there is no art.Antoni Gaudí.
Biography
Birth, childhood and studies
Antoni Gaudí was born on June 25, 1852, the son of the tinker industrialist Francesc Gaudí i Serra (1813-1906) and Antònia Cornet i Bertran (1819-1876). He was the youngest of five siblings, only three of whom reached adulthood: Rosa (1844-1879), Francesc (1851-1876) and Antoni. Gaudí's family origins go back to the south of France, in Auvergne, from where one of his ancestors, Joan Gaudí, a street vendor, went to Catalonia in the 17th century; the last name in the origin of him could be Gaudy or Gaudin.
| Francesc Gaudí i Figueres | ||||||||||||||||
| Francesc Gaudí i Salvany | ||||||||||||||||
| Francesca Salvany i Serra | ||||||||||||||||
| Francesc Gaudí i Serra | ||||||||||||||||
| Rosa Serra i Torroja | ||||||||||||||||
| Antoni Gaudí i Cornet | ||||||||||||||||
| Carles Cornet i Llombart | ||||||||||||||||
| Antoni Cornet i Sans | ||||||||||||||||
| Maria Sans i Fernandes | ||||||||||||||||
| Antònia Cornet i Bertran | ||||||||||||||||
| Josep Bertran i Patxo | ||||||||||||||||
| Maria Bertran i Buxeda | ||||||||||||||||
The exact place of Gaudí's birth is unknown, since no document is preserved that specifies it, and there is a dispute between Reus and Riudoms (two neighboring and adjoining municipalities in the Bajo Campo region) about the architect's birthplace. Even so, in most of Gaudí's documents, both from his student days and from his professional days, he appears as having been born in Reus. However, Gaudí himself stated on various occasions that he was from Riudoms, the place of origin of his paternal family.What is certain is that he was baptized in the Priory Church of San Pedro de Reus the day after the birth of him The name on his baptismal certificate is Anton Placid Guillem .
Be that as it may, Gaudí felt great appreciation for his homeland, which was evident in his great Mediterraneanism, a fact that had a notable influence on his architecture: Gaudí said that Mediterranean peoples have an innate sense of art and design, that they are creative and original, while the Nordic peoples are more technical and repetitive. In Gaudí's own words:
We possess the image. Fantasy comes from ghosts. Fantasy is from the people of the North. We are concrete. The image is from the Mediterranean. Orestes knows where he's going, while Hamlet wanders in doubt.
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The stay in his homeland also helped him to get to know and study nature in depth, especially during his summer stays at Mas de la Calderera, the Gaudí house in Riudoms. He liked contact with nature, which is why he later became a member of the Catalonia Excursionist Center (1879), an entity with which he made numerous trips throughout Catalonia and the south of France. He also practiced horsemanship for a time, and until his old age he walked about ten kilometers a day.
The family environment was perhaps one of the catalysts for Gaudí's creativity. More than five generations in his family worked in the manufacture of copper products, including his father and both of his grandparents. They mainly manufactured giant barrels for the distillation of grape alcohol, in Tarragona. Gaudí himself admits that the spatial aspects of these large figures in forged copper sheets had an influence on him, making him have a notion of three-dimensional objects from a young age and not geometrically represented on a plane. This perception of the figures as malleable and almost sculptural objects led him to develop his style so characteristic of him in the future.
The little Gaudí had a sickly nature, and he suffered from rheumatism since he was a child, which gave him a somewhat withdrawn and reserved character. Perhaps for this reason, when he grew up he became a vegetarian and a supporter of the hygienist theories of Dr. Kneipp. Due to these beliefs—and for religious reasons—he sometimes fasted severely, so much so that he sometimes endangered his own life, such as in 1894, the year in which he fell seriously ill due to a prolonged fast.
He completed his first studies in the kindergarten of the teacher Francesc Berenguer, father of who would be one of his main collaborators, and then he went to the Piarists of Reus; He excelled in drawing, collaborating with the weekly El Arlequín He also worked for a time as an apprentice at the Vapor Nou de Reus textile factory. In 1868 he moved to Barcelona to attend high school at the Convento del Carmen in Barcelona. In his adolescence he was close to utopian socialism, carrying out together with two fellow students, Eduardo Toda and José Ribera y Sans, a restoration project for the Poblet Monastery that would turn it into a utopian-social phalanstery.
Between 1875 and 1878 he did military service in the Infantry Arms in Barcelona, being assigned to Military Administration. He spent most of the time on leave from duty because of his health, so he was able to continue his studies. Thanks to this, he did not have to go into combat, since those dates coincided with the Third Carlist War. In 1876 the sad event of the death of his mother took place, at the age of 57, as well as that of his brother Francesc at 25, newly qualified physician who never practiced.
He studied architecture at the Escuela de la Lonja and at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona, where he graduated in 1878. Along with architecture subjects, he attended French classes and took some subjects in History, Economics, Philosophy and Aesthetics. His academic record was regular, with the occasional fail; Gaudí was more concerned with his own interests than with official subjects. Elies Rogent, director of the Barcelona School of Architecture, said at the time of awarding him the title:
We have given the title to a madman or a genius, time will tell.
To pay for his degree, Gaudí worked as a draftsman for various architects and builders, such as Leandre Serrallach, Joan Martorell, Emilio Sala Cortés, Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano and Josep Fontserè. Perhaps for this reason, upon receiving the title, Gaudí, with his ironic sense of humor, commented to his friend the sculptor Llorenç Matamala:
Llorenç, they say I'm already an architect.
Maturity and professional work
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His first projects were the lampposts for the Plaza Real, the unrealized project of Kioscos Girossi and the Cooperativa Obrera Mataronense. With his first important commission, the Casa Vicens, Gaudí began to gain renown, and received larger and larger commissions. At the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1878, Gaudí exhibited a showcase made for the Comella Glove Shop. The modernist design, both functional and aesthetic of this work, impressed the Catalan industrialist Eusebi Güell who, upon his return, contacted the architect to entrust him with various projects that he had in mind. Thus began a long friendship and a fruitful patronage that gave rise to some of Gaudí's most outstanding works: the Güell Cellars, the Güell Pavilions, the Güell Palace, the Güell Park and the Colonia Güell Chapel. Likewise, he was related to the Marquis of Comillas, father-in-law of Count Güell, for whom he made El Capricho de Comillas.
In 1883, he agreed to take charge of continuing the recently begun works on the Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Família. Gaudí completely modified the initial project, turning it into his masterpiece, known and admired throughout the world. From 1915 he devoted himself almost entirely to this project, until he died. Gaudí began to receive more and more commissions, so, working on several projects at the same time, he had to surround himself with a large team of professionals from all fields related to construction; Numerous architects would be trained in his studio who would eventually reach a renowned position in the sector, such as Josep Maria Jujol, Juan Rubió, Cèsar Martinell, Francesc Folguera and Josep Francesc Ràfols. In 1885, to escape the cholera epidemic that devastated Barcelona, Gaudí spent a stay in San Felíu de Codinas, residing in the house of Francesc Ullar, to whom he designed a dining table in gratitude.
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One of the events of the time for the Catalan capital, and which served as a starting point for modernism, was the Universal Exposition of 1888, where the main architects of the moment would exhibit their best works. Gaudí participated with the building of the Compañía Trasatlántica, and received a commission to restructure the Salón de Ciento of the Barcelona City Council, which in the end was not carried out. In the early 1890s he received two commissions outside of Catalonia: that of the Episcopal Palace in Astorga and that of Casa Botines in León. Thus, the fame and prestige of the architect from Reus spread throughout Spain. In 1891 he traveled to Málaga and Tangier to examine the land of a project for some Franciscan Catholic Missions, which had been commissioned by the 2nd Marquis of Comillas; the project was not carried out, but the towers projected for the Missions served Gaudí as a model. for the towers of the Sagrada Familia.
In 1899 he became a member of the Círculo Artístico de San Lucas, a Catholic art society founded in 1893 by Bishop José Torras y Bages and the brothers Josep and Joan Llimona. He also joined the Lliga Espiritual de la Mare de Déu de Montserrat, a Catalan organization also of a Catholic sign, thus demonstrating the conservative and religious nature of his political thought, linked to the defense of the cultural identity of the Catalan people. Despite the apparent contradiction between the utopian ideals of his youth and his subsequent adherence to more conservative positions, his evolution may be natural if we take into account the deep spirituality of the architect; in the words of Cèsar Martinell, he “substituted secular philanthropy for Christian charity”.
The beginning of the century found Gaudí embarking on numerous projects, in which the change in his style was evident, increasingly personal and inspired by nature. In 1900 he received the prize for the best building of the year for Casa Calvet, awarded by the Barcelona City Council. During the first decade of the century, he was in charge of projects such as Casa Figueras, better known as Bellesguard, Park Güell, an urbanization project that was unsuccessful, and the restoration of the Cathedral of Santa María in Palma de Mallorca, for which he carried out several trips to the island. Between 1904 and 1910 he built Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, two of his most emblematic works.
Gaudi's fame was increasing, causing, for example, that in 1902 the painter Joan Llimona chose Gaudí's physiognomy to represent Saint Felipe Neri in the paintings of the transept of the church of San Felipe Neri in Barcelona. That year He founded with Joan Santaló, son of his friend Dr. Pere Santaló, a company dedicated to forging iron, which failed.
Since his move to Barcelona, Gaudí had often changed his address: in his student days he lived in a boarding house, generally in the Gothic Quarter area; When he began his career, he moved to various rental apartments in the Ensanche area. Finally, in 1906 he settled in a house he owned, in Park Güell, built by his assistant Francisco Berenguer as a show house for the development; It is currently the Gaudí House-Museum. Here he lived with his father (died 1906 at age 93) and his niece, Rosa Egea Gaudí (died 1912 at age 36). He lived in this house until 1925, a few months before his death, residing this last time in the Sagrada Família workshop.
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One of the events that deeply marked Gaudí were the events of the Tragic Week of 1909; Gaudí remained confined during that time in his house in Park Güell, but due to the anti-clerical environment and the attacks against churches and convents, he feared for the integrity of the Sagrada Familia —which fortunately was not damaged.
In 1910 an exhibition dedicated to Gaudí was held at the Grand Palais in Paris, as part of the annual salon of the Société des Beaux-Arts of France. Gaudí participated at the behest of Count Güell, presenting a series of photos, plans and plaster models of several of his works. Although he participated out of competition, he received very good reviews from the French press. A good part of this exhibition could be seen the following year at the I National Architecture Salon held in the Buen Retiro Municipal Exhibition Pavilion in Madrid.
While the Paris exhibition was being held in May 1910, Gaudí spent a resting stay in Vich, where he designed two basalt and wrought iron lampposts for the Plaza Mayor in Vich, on the occasion of the centenary of Jaime Balmes. The following year he too was forced to spend some time in Puigcerdà, due to fever from Malta; During that period of rest he conceived the façade of the Passion of the Sagrada Familia.Due to his seriousness, on June 9 he drew up a will before the notary Ramon Cantó i Figueres; fortunately, he was able to fully recover.
The 1910s were hard for Gaudí, who suffered several misfortunes: in 1912 his niece Rosa died; in 1914, his main collaborator, Francisco Berenguer, died; in 1915 a serious economic crisis almost paralyzed the works of the Sagrada Família; in 1916, his friend José Torras y Bages, Bishop of Vich, died; in 1917 the works of Colonia Güell are interrupted; His friend and patron, Eusebi Güell, died in 1918. Perhaps for all of this, since 1915 he has dedicated himself entirely to the Sagrada Família, taking refuge in his work. Gaudí confesses to his collaborators:
My great friends are dead; I have no family, no clients, no fortune, nothing. So I can totally surrender myself to the Temple.
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Indeed, the last years of his life were dedicated entirely to the "Cathedral of the Poor" —as it is popularly known—, for which he even went so far as to ask for alms in order to continue with the works. Apart from this dedication, he carries out few other activities, almost always related to religion: in 1916 he participated in a Gregorian chant course given at the Palacio de la Música Catalana by the Benedictine monk Gregorio Suñol.
Gaudí lived completely dedicated to his profession, remaining single all his life. Apparently, on only one occasion was he attracted to a woman, Josefa Moreu, a teacher at the Cooperativa Mataronense, around 1884, but he was not reciprocated.Since then, Gaudí took refuge in his profound religiosity, in which he found great peace. spiritual. The image of a sullen and unfriendly Gaudí, with brusque answers and haughty gestures, has often been painted; but the people who treated him more closely described him as an affable and courteous person, a good conversationalist and faithful to his friends, among whom his patron, Eusebi Güell, and the Bishop of Vic, José Torras y Bages, as well as the writers Joan Maragall and Jacinto Verdaguer, doctor Pere Santaló and some of his most faithful collaborators, such as Francisco Berenguer and Llorenç Matamala.
Gaudi's personal appearance —with Nordic features, blond hair and blue eyes— underwent a radical transformation over time: from being a young man with the appearance of a dandy (expensive suits, well-groomed hair and beard, tastes of gourmet, frequent attendance at the theater and the opera, he even visited the plays mounted in his carriage), he spent in his old age the strictest simplicity, eating frugally, wearing old and worn clothes, with a careless appearance, so much so that sometimes they took him for a beggar, as unfortunately happened at the time of the accident that caused his death.
Gaudí left practically no writings, apart from technical reports on his works required by official instances, some letters to friends (mainly to Joan Maragall) and some newspaper articles. Some of his phrases have been preserved, collected by some of his assistants and disciples, mainly Josep Francesc Ràfols, Joan Bergós, Cèsar Martinell and Isidre Puig i Boada. The only writing left by Gaudí is the one known as the Reus Manuscript (1873-1878), a kind of student diary where he collected various impressions on architecture and decoration, exposing his ideas in this regard; The analyzes that he made on the Christian temple and the manor house stand out, as well as a text on ornamentation and a memory for a table-desk.
Gaudí always recognized himself as a supporter of Catalanism, although he never wanted to be linked to politics –some politicians such as Francisco Cambó or Enric Prat de la Riba proposed to him to run for deputy, but he declined the offer–. Even so, he had various altercations with the police: in 1920 he was beaten by the same in a riot formed in the celebration of the Floral Games; on September 11, 1924, National Day of Catalonia, during a demonstration against the prohibition of the use of Catalan by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, he was arrested by the Civil Guard, spending a brief stay in jail, from which he left with a 50 pesetas bail.
Death
On June 7, 1926, Gaudí was on his way to the church of San Felipe Neri, which he visited daily to pray and meet with his confessor, Mosen Agustí Mas i Folch; but when passing through the Gran Vía de las Cortes Catalanas, between Gerona and Bailén streets, he was run over by a tram, which left him senseless. Being taken for a beggar, going undocumented and because of his unkempt appearance, worn out and old clothes, he was not helped immediately, until a civil guard stopped a taxi that took him to the Hospital de la Santa Cruz. to do anything for him. He died on June 10, 1926, at 73 years of age, in the prime of his career. He was buried on June 12, in the presence of large crowds who wanted to say their last goodbyes, in the chapel of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the crypt of the Sagrada Família. On his tombstone is the following inscription:
Antonius Gaudí Cornet / Reusensis / Annos natus LXXIV / Vitae exemplaris vir / Eximiusque artifex / Mirabilis operis huius / templi auctor / Pie obiit Barcinone / die X Junii MCMXXVI / Hinc cineres tanti hominis / resurrectionem mortuorum / expectant. R.I.P. (Antoni Gaudí Cornet. Oriundo de Reus. Born 74 years ago, exemplary man of life and exemplified artifice, author of the admirable work of this temple, died in Barcelona on June 10, 1926, here the ashes of such a great man await the resurrection of the dead. Q.E.P.D.)
Impact of Gaudí's work
After his death, Gaudí fell into relative oblivion, and his work was reviled by international critics for being baroque and excessively fanciful. In his homeland he was equally despised by the new current that replaced modernism, noucentisme, a style that returned to the classical canons. In 1936, during the course of the Civil War, Gaudí's workshop in the Sagrada Familia was robbed, destroying a large number of documents, plans and models of the modernist architect.
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His figure began to be claimed in the 1950s, first by Salvador Dalí, followed by the architect Josep Lluís Sert. In 1956 a retrospective on Gaudí was organized at the Salón del Tinell in Barcelona, and in 1957 the first major international exhibition of him, at the MoMA in New York. Likewise, between the years 1950 and 1960, the studies of international critics such as Bruno Zevi, George Collins, Nikolaus Pevsner and Roberto Pane gave great diffusion to the work of Gaudí, while in his homeland he was vindicated by Alexandre Cirici, Juan Eduardo Cirlot and Oriol Bohigas. It is also noteworthy the great success obtained by Gaudí in Japan, where his work is highly admired, highlighting the studies carried out by Kenji Imai and Tokutoshi Torii. Since then, the appreciation of Gaudí has been increasing, a process that was reflected in the cataloging in 1969 of 17 works by Gaudí as Historic-Artistic Monuments of Cultural Interest by the Spanish Ministry of Culture (RD 1794/1969), being the first "contemporary" artist in achieving this distinction, since until then the regulations dictated that only works a century or more old could have this cataloging. Similarly, in 1984 several works by the architect were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In 1952, the centenary of the architect's birth, the Association of Friends of Gaudí was founded to disseminate and preserve the legacy left by the Catalan architect. In 1956, the Gaudí Chair, belonging to the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, was created with the aim of furthering the study of Gaudí's work and participating in its conservation; In 1987, King Juan Carlos I granted it the title of Real Cátedra Gaudí. In 1976, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized an exhibition on Gaudí that toured the entire world.
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Gaudí's birth, the Gaudí International Year was celebrated in 2002, with a multitude of official acts, concerts, shows, conferences, publications, etc. Among other events, on September 24 of that year, the musical Gaudí, about the life and work of the Reus-born architect, the work of Jordi Galceran, Esteve Miralles and Albert Guinovart. In 2008, the Gaudí Awards were instituted in his honor, awarded by the Catalan Film Academy, which recognize the best Catalan film productions of the year.
A man of profound religiosity and an ascetic life, the beatification of Antoni Gaudí has been proposed, a process initiated in 1998 by the Archbishop of Barcelona, Ricard Maria Carles. In the year 2000, the start of the process was authorized by the Holy See with the nihil obstat decree, by which Gaudí came to be considered a servant of God, the first step towards beatification.
In 2013, on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of Gaudí's first work, the Cooperativa Obrera Mataronense, with the support of the Generalitat of Catalonia, created the Council for the Promotion and Dissemination of Gaudí's work, a body chaired by the Minister of Culture of the Generalitat in charge of preserving the architectural legacy of the modernist genius, as well as disseminating and publicizing his work among the population. Among other initiatives, the launch of a "Gaudi passport" is planned for 2017, similar to the existing one for the Camino de Santiago, which would be sealed when visiting each of the buildings built by the architect, thus promoting knowledge of his works.
Style
Gaudi and modernism
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The architect's professional career evolved sui generis, due to his constant research in the field of the mechanical structure of works. At the beginning of it, Gaudí received a certain influence from oriental art (India, Persia, Japan), through the study of historicist architecture theorists, Walter Pater, John Ruskin and William Morris. We see this orientalizing current in works such as the Capricho de Comillas, the Güell Palace, the Güell Pavilions or the Casa Vicens. Later, he followed the neo-Gothic trend in vogue at the time, following the advice of the French architect Viollet-le-Duc. It can be seen in the Colegio de las Teresianas, the Episcopal Palace of Astorga, Casa Botines and Casa Bellesguard, as well as in the crypt and apse of the Sagrada Familia. Finally, he leads to his most personal stage, with a naturalistic, individual, organic style, inspired by nature, in which he will create his own masterpieces.
During his time as a student, Gaudí was able to contemplate a collection of photographs that the School of Architecture had on Egypt, India, Persian, Mayan, Chinese and Japanese art, as well as Spanish Islamic monuments, which left him with a deep footprint, serving as inspiration for many of his works. He also carefully studied the book Plans, elevations, sections and details of the Alhambra, by Owen Jones, belonging to the School's library. From the Nasrid and Mudejar arts he took multiple structural and ornamental solutions that applied with certain variants and stylistic freedom to his works. One aspect to highlight that Gaudí takes from Islamic art is the lack of spatial definition, the conception of space without structured limits; space that acquires a sequential, fragmented sense, through small partitions or diaphanous openings, which create separation without assuming compact barriers that delimit a uniformly closed space.
But without a doubt the style that most influenced him was Gothic art, which at the end of the XIX century lived a great renaissance due above all to the theoretical and restorative work of Viollet-le-Duc. The French architect advocated studying the styles of the past and adapting them to the present in a rational way, taking into account both structural and ornamental reasons. However, for Gaudí the Gothic style was "imperfect", because despite the effectiveness of some of its his structural solutions was an art to be "perfected." In his own words:
Gothic art is imperfect, it is half solved; it is the style of the compass, of the formula of industrial repetition. Its stability is based on the permanent aiming of the counterstrokes: it is a defective body that hangs with crutches. (...) It proves that the Gothic works are of a deficient plastic is that they produce the maximum emotion when they are mutilated, covered with ivy and illuminated by the moon.
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After these initial influences, Gaudí led to Modernism in its heyday, in the years between the XIX centuries and XX. In its beginnings, modernism finds its inspiration in historicist architecture, since for modernist artists the return to the past is a reaction against the industrial forms imposed by the new technological advances produced with the Industrial Revolution. The use of the styles of the past supposes a moral regeneration that allows the new ruling class, the bourgeoisie, to identify with values that they recognize as their cultural roots. Likewise, the resurgence of Catalan culture since the mid-XIX century (the Renaixença), leads to the adoption of Gothic forms as a style «national» of Catalonia, with the aim of combining nationalism and cosmopolitanism, of integrating into the European modernizing current.
Some essential features of modernism will be: an anti-classical language heir to romanticism, with a tendency to a certain lyricism and subjectivism; determined linkage of architecture with applied arts and artistic trades, creating a remarkably ornamental style; use of new materials, creating a mixed constructive language rich in contrasts, seeking the plastic effect of the whole; strong feeling of optimism and faith in progress, which produces exalted and emphatic art, a reflection of the climate of prosperity of the moment, especially in the bourgeois class.
Gaudí's architecture does not fit into modernism, while all modernism fits perfectly within Gaudí's work.Juan Bassegoda.
In search of a new architectural language
Gaudí is often considered the great master of Catalan modernism, but his work goes beyond any style or attempt to classify it. It is a personal and imaginative work that finds its main inspiration in nature. Gaudí studied in depth the organic and anarchically geometric forms of nature, searching for a language to be able to capture these forms in architecture. Some of his greatest inspirations will come from the Montserrat mountain, the caves of Mallorca, the Cueva del Salnitre (Collbató), the Fra Guerau cliffs in the Sierra de Prades near Reus, the Pareis mountain in the north of Mallorca, the Coll de la Desenrocada (between Argentera and Vilanova de Escornalbou) or San Miguel de Fay in Bigas, all of them places visited by Gaudí.
This study of nature translates into the use of ruled geometric shapes such as the hyperbolic paraboloid, the hyperboloid, the helicoid and the conoid, which exactly reflect the shapes that Gaudí found in nature. Ruled surfaces are shapes generated by a straight line, called a generatrix, when moving over a line or several, called guidelines. Gaudí found them in abundance in nature, such as in reeds, reeds or bones; he said that there is no better structure than a tree trunk or a human skeleton. These forms are both functional and aesthetic, and Gaudí used them with great wisdom, knowing how to adapt the language of nature to the structural forms of architecture. Gaudí assimilated the helical shape to movement, and the hyperboloid to light. He said the following about ruled surfaces:
Paraboloids, hyperboloids and helicoids, constantly varying the incidence of light, have their own richness of nuances, which make ornamentation unnecessary and even modeling.
Another of the elements widely used by Gaudí is the catenary curve. Gaudí had studied geometry in depth when he was young, reading numerous treatises on engineering that praised the virtues of the use of the catenary curve as a mechanical element, which, however, was then only used in the construction of suspended bridges; Gaudí was the first to use this element in common architecture. The use of catenary arches in works such as Casa Milà, the Colegio de las Teresianas, the Colonia Güell chapel or the Sagrada Familia allows Gaudí to provide his structures with a highly resistant element, since the catenary regularly distributes the weight that it supports, suffering only tangential forces that cancel each other out.
Hyperbolic paraboloid
Hyperboloid of a leaf
Helicoid
Conoid
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With all these elements, Gaudí went from flat geometry to spatial, ruled geometry. In addition, these constructive forms were very well suited to a type of simple construction and cheap materials, such as brick: Gaudí regularly used brick joined with mortar, in superimposed layers, as in the traditional Catalan partitioned vault. This search for new structural solutions reached its culmination between the years 1910 and 1920, when he practically experimented with all his research in his masterpiece: the Sagrada Família. Gaudí conceived this temple as if it were the structure of a forest, with a set of arborescent columns divided into various branches to support a structure of interlocking hyperboloid vaults. The columns were inclined to better receive the pressures perpendicular to their section; In addition, he gave them a double-turned helical shape (right-handed and left-handed), as in the branches and trunks of trees. This ramification creates a structure today called fractal which, together with the modulation of space, which subdivides it into small independent and self-supporting modules, creates a structure that perfectly supports mechanical tensile efforts without the need to use buttresses, as required by the style. Gothic. Gaudí thus achieved a rational and structured solution, perfectly logical and adapted to nature, while creating a new architectural style, original and simple, practical and aesthetic.
This new constructive technique allowed Gaudí to carry out his greatest architectural desire, perfecting and surpassing the Gothic style: the hyperboloid vaults have their center where the Gothic ones had the key, with the exception that the hyperboloid allows a hole to be created in that space, a void that allows the passage of natural light. Likewise, at the intersection between the vaults, where the Gothic vaults had ribs, the hyperboloid once again allows the opening of small openings, which Gaudí takes advantage of to give the sensation of a starry sky.
This organic vision of architecture is complemented in Gaudí with a singular spatial vision that allowed him to conceive his architectural designs in a three-dimensional way, contrary to the two-dimensionality of the flat design of traditional architecture. Gaudí said that he had acquired this spatial sense as a child, seeing the designs that his father made for the boilers and alembics that he manufactured. Due to this spatial conception, Gaudí always preferred to work on molds and models, or even go improvising on the spot as that the work was progressing; Reluctant to draw plans, he rarely drew sketches of his works, only when required by official authorities.
One of his many innovations in the technical field was the use of a model for the calculation of structures: for the church of Colonia Güell he built a large-scale model (1:10) in a shed next to the works, four meters high, where he installed a wooden board —fixed on the ceiling— where he had drawn the plan of the church; from the points that in this drawing represented the supporting elements of the building —columns and intersection of walls— he hung some cords from which dangled cloth bags filled with lead shot —whose weight was proportional to the loads—, which were thus suspended, and due to the effect of gravity, they gave the resulting catenary curve, both in arches and in vaults. From here he took a photograph, which once inverted gave the structure of columns and arches that Gaudí was looking for. On these photographs Gaudí painted, with gouache or pastel, the already defined contour of the church, emphasizing every last detail of the building, both architectural, stylistic and decorative.
Gaudi's position within the history of architecture is that of a great creative genius who, inspired by nature, created his own style, of great technical perfection as well as careful aesthetic value, marked by the seal of his strong personality. His structural innovations, which to a certain extent imply overcoming previous styles, from the Doric to the Baroque, passing through the Gothic, the main source of inspiration for the architect, could be considered as representing the culmination of the classical styles, which Gaudí reinterprets and perfect. Thus, Gaudí surpassed the historicism and eclecticism of his generation, but without actually connecting with other currents of XX architecture, which with its rationalist postulates derived from the Bauhaus School, it will mean an evolution antithetical to that initiated by Gaudí, a fact that will mark the contempt and initial misunderstanding of the work of the modernist architect.
Gaudí exerted a notable influence on some Catalan architects of his time, especially his collaborators and disciples. Some of his collaborators closely followed in his footsteps, especially Francisco Berenguer, Josep Maria Jujol, Domènec Sugrañes, Joan Rubió and Josep Canaleta. Among his younger disciples we see his imprint in Lluís Bonet i Garí (chapel of Sant Miquel del Cros, Argentona), Isidre Puig i Boada (chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, Gelida), Joan Bergós (hermitage of San Antonio, Seo de Urgel) and Cèsar Martinell (especially the many wineries he built). Others, such as Francesc Folguera and Josep Francesc Ràfols, evolved towards Noucentisme, moving away from the trail of the master. A certain influence of the architect of the Sagrada Família can also be perceived in some architects who did not have direct contact with Gaudí, such as Josep Puig i Cadafalch (Cavas Codorniu, San Sadurní de Noya), Jeroni Martorell (Ull de Ter refuge chalet, Setcasas), Josep Maria Pericas (Casa Alòs, Ripoll), Bernardí Martorell (Olius Cemetery) or Lluís Muncunill (Freixa Farmhouse, Tarrasa). Other architects Tects in which his influence is indirectly perceived were Salvador Valeri, Jeroni Granell, Eduard Maria Balcells, Rafael Masó and Josep Goday.
Despite everything, Gaudí did not create his own school, since he never dedicated himself to teaching or left practically any writings, so his work initially fell into oblivion after his death, beyond his helpers and disciples. Even so, Gaudí has left a deep mark on the architecture of the XX century: architects such as Le Corbusier declared themselves admirers of the work by the Catalan architect, and others such as Pier Luigi Nervi, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Oscar Niemeyer, Félix Candela, Eduardo Torroja or Santiago Calatrava are to this day indebted to the style started by Gaudí. Frei Otto used Gaudí forms in the Olympic Stadium in Munich. In Japan, the work of Kenji Imai is clearly influenced by Gaudí, as can be seen in the Memorial to the 26 Martyrs of Japan in Nagasaki (Japan National Architecture Prize in 1962), where the use of the famous stands out. trencadís by the architect from Reus. On the other hand, the teaching and research work carried out by art critics since 1950 has placed the artist in a deserved place of relevance within the architecture of the century XX.
Architecture is the first plastic art; sculpture and painting need the first. All his excellence comes from the light. Architecture is the ordination of light.Antoni Gaudí.
Design and crafts
During his student days, Gaudí frequented various craft workshops, such as those of Eudald Puntí, Llorenç Matamala and Joan Oñós, where he learned the basic aspects of all trades related to architecture, such as sculpture, carpentry, forging, glasswork, ceramics, plaster molding, etc. Likewise, he knew how to assimilate the new technological advances, incorporating iron or reinforced concrete construction into his technique. All this was due to the global vision that Gaudí had of architecture as a work of multifunctional design, in which even the smallest detail had to be elaborated in a blended, proportionate set. This knowledge allowed him not only to dedicate himself to his architectural projects, but also to design all the elements of the works that he created, from the furniture to the lighting or the wrought iron finishes.
Gaudí was also an innovator in the field of craft trades, devising new technical or decorative solutions with the materials he used, such as his way of designing ceramic veneers made with waste pieces (trencadís), in original and fanciful combinations. For the restoration of the Cathedral of Mallorca, he created a new technique for making stained glass, consisting of juxtaposing three glasses of primary colors —and sometimes a neutral one—, varying the thickness of the glass to adjust the intensity of the light.
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Likewise, he personally designed many of the sculptures of the Sagrada Família, applying a curious working method devised by him: first, he made a deep anatomical study of the figure, focusing on the joints —for which he carefully studied the structure of the human skeleton—; sometimes he used dolls made of wire to test the proper posture of the figure to be sculpted. Second, he took photographs of the models, using a system of mirrors that provided multiple perspectives. He then made plaster casts of the figures, both people and animals (on one occasion he had to hoist up a donkey to keep it from moving). On these molds he modified the proportions to get a perfect vision of the figure depending on its location in the temple (the larger the higher). Finally, it was carved in stone.
In addition to being an architect, Gaudí was an urban planner and landscape designer, always trying to locate his works in the most suitable environment, both natural and architectural. He carried out an in-depth study of the location of his buildings, which he tried to integrate naturally into the surrounding landscape, coming to use on numerous occasions the most common material in his environment, such as slate stone in Bellesguard or gray granite from Bierzo in the Episcopal Palace of Astorga. Many of his projects included gardens, such as the Casa Vicens or the Güell Pavilions, or were even fully landscaped, such as the Güell Park or the Can Artigas Gardens. A perfect example of integration into nature was the First Mystery of Glory of the Monumental Rosary of Montserrat, where the architectural framework is nature itself —in this case, the rock of Montserrat—, which accommodates the sculptural group that decorates the path to the Holy Cave.
Gaudi also stood out as an interior designer, taking personal charge of decorating most of his buildings, from furniture design to the smallest details. In each case, he knew how to apply stylistic particularities, personalizing the decoration according to the taste of the owner, the predominant style of the complex or its location in the environment, whether urban or natural, or depending on its typology, secular or religious —a good part of his production was linked to the liturgical furniture. Thus, from the design of a desk for his own office at the beginning of his career, through the furniture designed for the Palace of Sobrellano de Comillas, he made all the furniture for the Vicens, Calvet, Batlló and Milà houses, for the Güell Palace and from the Torre Bellesguard, to lead to the liturgical furniture of the Sagrada Família. It is noteworthy that Gaudí carried out ergonomics studies to adapt his furniture to the human anatomy in the most optimal way possible. Much of the furniture he designed is currently on display at the Gaudí House-Museum in Park Güell.
Another aspect to highlight is the intelligent distribution of space, designed to create an atmosphere of comfort and privacy inside all its buildings. To do this, it organizes the space into different sections or environments adapted to its specific use, through the use of partitions, false ceilings, sliding doors, stained glass windows or wall cabinets. In addition to taking care of all the structural and ornamental elements down to the last detail, he took care that his buildings had perfect lighting and ventilation, for which he studied in detail the orientation of the building with respect to the cardinal points, as well as the climate of the area. and its fit into the surrounding natural environment. At that time, the demand for greater domestic comfort began, with the channeling of water, gas and electricity, elements that Gaudí masterfully knew how to incorporate into his constructions. For the Sagrada Família, for example, he carried out extensive acoustic and lighting studies to optimize them. Gaudí said the following regarding light:
The light that achieves maximum harmony is that which has a 45° inclination, since it incites in the bodies so that it is not horizontally or vertically. It is the one that can be considered medium light and gives the most perfect vision of the bodies and their most exquisite nuance. It is the light of the Mediterranean.
Lighting also serves Gaudí to organize the space, attending in a carefully studied way to the gradation of light intensity to suitably adapt to each specific environment. This is achieved with different elements such as skylights, stained glass windows, blinds or lattices; In this sense, it is worth noting the chromatic gradation used in the light well of Casa Batlló to achieve a uniform distribution of light throughout the interior. Likewise, he usually orients the houses to the south to make the most of sunlight.
Work
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Gaudi's work is difficult to classify. Inscribed in modernism, he undoubtedly belongs to this current due to his desire for renewal —without thereby breaking with tradition—, the search for modernity, the ornamental sense applied to his work and the multidisciplinary character given to his achievements, where they have a fundamental role of crafts. To these premises Gaudí adds certain doses of baroque style, the inclusion of technological advances and the maintenance of traditional architectural languages, which together with the inspiration in nature and the touch of originality that he gives to his achievements constitute the amalgam that provides the set of his work a personal and unique seal in the history of architecture.
Chronologically, it is difficult to establish guidelines that accurately determine the evolution of his style. Although it starts from some clearly historicist postulates to fully frame itself in the modernism that emerged strongly in the last third of the XIX century in Catalonia and finally reach the final resolution of his personal and organic style, this evolution does not present precise stages with ruptures between one and the other, but in all of them there are reflections of the first ones, as he assimilates and overcomes them. One of the best periodizations of Gaudí's work carried out is that of his disciple and biographer Joan Bergós, carried out according to plastic and structural criteria; Bergós establishes five periods in Gaudí's production: preliminary period, Mudejar-Moorish, evolved Gothic, expressionist naturalism and organic synthesis.
Early works
His first achievements, both during his student days and the first executed when obtaining his degree, stand out for the great precision of the details, the use of superior geometry and the preponderance of mechanical considerations in the calculation of structures.
During his studies, Gaudí carried out various career projects, including: a cemetery gate (1875), a Spanish pavilion for the Universal Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, a jetty (1876), a patio for the Diputación de Barcelona (1876), a monumental fountain for the Plaza de Catalunya in Barcelona (1877) and a university auditorium (1877).
- Career projects
Cemetery gate (1875)
Patio para la Diputación de Barcelona (1876)
Embarcadero (1876)
Source for Plaza Catalunya (1877)
University Paraninfo (1877)
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Gaudí began his professional career during his university studies, since to pay for his studies he worked as a draftsman for several of the best architects who stood out in Barcelona at the time, such as Joan Martorell, Josep Fontserè, Francisco de Paula del Villar and Lozano, Leandre Serrallach and Emilio Sala Cortés, as well as the engineer Josep Serramalera, from the firm Padrós y Borrás.
Gaudi had an old relationship with Josep Fontserè, since his family was also originally from Riudoms and they had known each other for a long time. Despite not having a title as an architect, Fontserè was commissioned by the Barcelona City Council for the urbanization of Parque de la Ciudadela, carried out between 1873 and 1882. In this project, Gaudí was in charge of designing the entrance gate to the park, the balustrade of the square of the municipal band and of the hydraulic project of the Monumental Waterfall, where he projected an artificial grotto that already demonstrates his taste for nature and the organic sense that he applies to his architecture. Gaudí is also noted as the designer of the Fontserè in a fountain-lamppost-clock installed in the Borne market in 1875. Made of cast iron, it had a base with a fountain with pipes coming out of some swan figures, on which were four sculptures of Nereids that supported paths gas street lamps, with a clock on top. This design was very similar to the crowning of the monumental fountain designed by Gaudí for the Plaza de Cataluña, so it suggests that it was the architect from Reus.
For Francisco del Villar Gaudí he worked on the apse of the Monastery of Montserrat, drawing in 1876 the Camarín de la Virgen for the Benedictine church; later, he would succeed Villar in the works of the Sagrada Família. With Leandre Serrallach he worked on a tram project to Villa Arcadia de Montjuïc. Finally, with Joan Martorell he collaborated on the Jesuitas church on Caspe street and the Salesas convent on Paseo de San Juan, as well as on the Villaricos church (Almería). Likewise, he carried out the project for the competition for the new façade of the Barcelona Cathedral for Martorell, which was ultimately not approved. His relationship with Martorell, whom he always considered one of his main and most influential teachers, brought him unexpected and fortunate results, since it was Martorell who recommended Gaudí to take charge of the Sagrada Família project.
Once he obtained the title of architect in 1878, his first works were some lampposts for the Plaza Real, the Girossi Kiosks project and the “La Obrera Mataronense” Cooperative, which was his first important work. Gaudí received the commission for some lampposts from the Barcelona City Council in February 1878, when he had approved the degree but the title had not yet been issued, which was dispatched in Madrid on March 15 of that year. For this commission he designed two different types of lampposts: one with six arms, of which two were installed in the Plaza Real, and another with three, of which two were also installed in the Plaza de Palacio, in front of the Old Customs of Barcelona. The lampposts were inaugurated at the Mercè festival in 1879. Made of cast iron, with a marble base, they are decorated with the Mercury caduceus, a symbol of commerce, as well as the Barcelona coat of arms.
The unrealized project of Kioscos Girossi was commissioned by the merchant Enrique Girossi de Sanctis; It would have consisted of twenty kiosks scattered throughout Barcelona, each of which would have included public toilets, a flower stand, and glass advertising panels, as well as a clock, calendar, barometer, and thermometer. Gaudí conceived a structure of iron pillars and marble and glass plates, crowned by a large iron and glass canopy, with a gas lighting system.
The Cooperativa Obrera Mataronense was Gaudí's first major project, on which he worked from 1878 to 1882, commissioned by Salvador Pagès Inglada. The project, for the company's headquarters in Mataró, consisted of a factory, a neighborhood of houses for the workers, a casino and a service building, of which only the factory and the service building were finally completed.. Gaudí used the catenary arch for the first time in the factory hall, with a bolt assembly system devised by Philibert de l'Orme.He also applied tile decoration for the first time in the service building ceramic. Gaudí carried out the urban design based on solar orientation, another of the constants in his works, and included garden areas in the project. He even designed the emblem of the Cooperative, with the figure of a bee, symbol of industriousness.
In May 1878, Gaudí designed a display case for the Esteban Comella glove shop, which was exhibited in the Spanish pavilion at the Universal Exposition in Paris that year. It was this work that attracted the attention of the businessman Eusebi Güell, who was visiting in the French capital; He was so impressed that upon his return he wanted to meet Gaudí, thus beginning a long friendship and professional collaboration, Güell being Gaudí's main patron and sponsor of many of his great projects.
The first commission that Güell made to Gaudí, that same year, was the design of the furniture for the chapel-pantheon of the Palacio de Sobrellano in Comillas, which Joan Martorell, Gaudí's teacher, was then building at the request of the Marquis of Comillas, Güell's father-in-law. Gaudí designed an armchair, a bench and a prie-dieu: the armchair was covered in velvet, topped by two eagles with the coat of arms of the marquis; the bench stands out for the relief of a dragon, designed by Llorenç Matamala; the prie-dieu has bas-relief decoration of plant forms.
Also in 1878 he made some plans for a theater in the old town of San Gervasio de Cassolas (today a neighborhood of the Ciudad Condal); Gaudí did not intervene in the subsequent construction of the theatre, which has now disappeared. The following year he designed the furniture and counter of the Gibert Pharmacy, with marquetry of Arab influence. That same year he made five drawings for a parade in homage to the poet Francesch Vicens García in Vallfogona de Riucorb, a town where this famous writer of the century was parish priest XVII, friend of Lope de Vega. Gaudí's project revolved around the glorified poet and different aspects of work in the fields, such as harvesting or harvesting grapes and olives; however, due to organizational problems in the contest, Gaudí's idea was not carried out.
Between 1879 and 1881 he carried out several works for the Congregation of Jesus-Maria: in San Andrés de Palomar he designed the decoration of the chapel of the Congregation (current church of San Paciano), which included the Gothic-style altar, the monstrance of Byzantine influence, the mosaic and the lighting, as well as the furniture of the school. The church burnt down in the Tragic Week of 1909, currently only the mosaic remains, opus tessellatum, probably the work of the Italian mosaicist Luigi Pellerin. For these same nuns he was in charge of decorating the church from the Colegio de Jesús-María de Tarragona (1880-1882): he made the altar in white Italian marble, and its front part, or antipendium, was arranged with four columns that exhibited polychrome alabaster medallions, with figures of angels; the monstrance, made of gilded wood, the work of Eudald Puntí, decorated with rosaries, angels, the symbols of the Tetramorphs and the dove of the Holy Spirit; and the choir stalls, destroyed in 1936.
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In 1880 he made an electrical lighting project for the Sea Wall of Barcelona, which was not carried out in the end. It would have consisted of eight large iron lanterns, profusely decorated with plant motifs, friezes, shields and names of battles and Catalan admirals. That same year he participated in the competition for the construction of the San Sebastián Casino (current City Hall), which was finally won by Luis Aladrén Mendivil and Adolfo Morales de los Ríos; Gaudí presented a project that was a synthesis of several of his previous studies, such as the fountain project for Plaza Cataluña or the patio for the Provincial Council.
A new commission by the Güell-López family for Comillas was that of a kiosk for the visit of King Alfonso XII to the Cantabrian town in 1881. Gaudí designed a small temple in the shape of a turban with Hindu influence, covered with mosaic and decorated with a great profusion of small bells that produced a constant musical peal. Later it was installed in the Güell Pavilions.
In 1882 he carried out for his former teacher, Joan Martorell, the project for a Benedictine monastery and a church dedicated to the Holy Spirit in Villaricos (Cuevas del Almanzora, Almería). It was neo-Gothic in plan, similar to the Salesas convent that Gaudí also designed with Martorell. In the end, it was not carried out, and the plans for the project were destroyed in the looting of the Sagrada Familia in 1936. That same year, he was commissioned to build a hunting lodge and some wineries on a farm called La Cuadra, in Garraf (Sitges), owned by magnate Eusebi Güell. Finally, the pavilion was not carried out, only building the cellars a few years later.
Gaudi's collaboration with Martorell was decisive for the latter to recommend Gaudí for the Sagrada Familia. The famous Gaudinian temple was the idea of Josep Maria Bocabella, founder of the Association of Devotees of San José, for which he acquired an entire block of the Barcelona Ensanche. Initially, the architect Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano was in charge of the project, who he planned the construction of a neo-Gothic church, beginning the works in 1882. However, the following year Villar resigned due to disagreements with the construction board, and the commission passed into the hands of Gaudí, who completely reformed the project —except for the part already built of the crypt. Gaudí would spend the rest of his life in the construction of the temple, which will be the synthesis of all his architectural findings, culminating in its final stage.
Orientalist period
In these years, Gaudí produced a series of works with a marked oriental taste, inspired by the art of the Near and Far East (India, Persia, Japan), as well as Hispanic Islamic art, mainly Mudejar and Nasrid. Gaudí used ceramic tile decoration profusely, as well as mitral arches, exposed brick cartouches and finials in the form of a small temple or dome.
Between 1883 and 1885, he built Casa Vicens, commissioned by the stockbroker Manuel Vicens i Montaner. It is structured on four levels or floors, with three facades and a large garden, with a monumental brick fountain formed by a parabolic arch above which there was a passage between columns. The house was closed with a fence wall with a cast iron fence, decorated with palm leaves, the work of Llorenç Matamala. The walls of the house are made of masonry alternated with rows of tiles, which reproduce yellow flowers typical of the area; the house is finished off with chimneys and some towers in the form of temples. Inside, the ceilings with polychrome wooden beams stand out, decorated with papier-mâché floral themes; the walls have sgraffito with plant motifs, as well as paintings by Francesc Torrescassana; Lastly, the floor is a Roman mosaic of opus tesselatum. One of the most original rooms is the smoking room, where the ceiling in the form of a low ceiling stands out, decorated with Arab mucarnas, reminiscent of the Generalife in the Alhambra in Granada.
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In the same year, 1883, Gaudí drafted an altarpiece for the Santísimo Sacramento chapel in the parish church of San Félix de Alella, as well as some topographical plans for the Can Rosell de la Llena estate in Gelida, and he was commissioned of a small hotel attached to the Palace of Sobrellano, of the Marquis of Comillas, in the homonymous Cantabrian town. Known as El Capricho, it was commissioned by Máximo Díaz de Quijano and built between 1883 and 1885. The works were directed by Cristóbal Cascante, Gaudí's fellow student. Oriental in style, it has an elongated plan, with three levels and a cylindrical tower in the shape of a Persian minaret, completely covered in ceramics. The access presents four columns and lintelled arches, with capitals decorated with birds and palm leaves, as in Casa Vicens. The main hall stands out for a large window with sash windows, and has a smoking room covered by false Arab-style stucco vaults.
Gaudí carried out a second commission for Eusebi Güell between 1884 and 1887, the Güell Pavilions in Pedralbes. Güell had a farm in Les Corts de Sarrià, the union of two pieces of land known as Can Feliu and Can Cuyàs de la Riera. The architect Joan Martorell had built a small palace with a Caribbean air, demolished in 1919, in whose place the Royal Palace of Pedralbes was built. Gaudí was commissioned to reform the house and build a fence wall and the gate pavilions, in addition to designing the gardens, in which he placed the Hercules Fountain. He made the masonry wall with several entrance doors, the main one with an iron gate in the shape of a dragon, with a symbology alluding to the myth of Hercules and the Garden of the Hesperides. The pavilions consist of a stable, riding arena and goal: the stable has a rectangular base, covered with a catenary-shaped partitioned vault; the arena has a square base, with a dome with a hyperboloidal profile, topped by a small temple; The goal consists of three small buildings, the central one with a polygonal floor plan and a hyperbolic dome, and two smaller ones with a cubic floor plan. All three are topped by fans in the form of ceramic-coated chimneys. The work is made of exposed brick in various shades between red and yellow, and covered with colored glass; in certain sections he also used prefabricated cement blocks. Currently the pavilions belong to the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.
In 1885 Gaudí received a commission from Josep Maria Bocabella, the promoter of the Sagrada Familia, for an altar located in the Bocabella family oratory, having obtained permission from the Pope to have an altar in his private home. The altar is mahogany, lacquered, with a white marble slab in the center for relics. It has plant decoration and various religious motifs, such as the Greek letters alpha and omega, symbols of the beginning and the end, phrases from the Gospel and images of Saint Francis of Paula, Saint Teresa of Jesus and the Holy Family; it closes with a curtain with an embroidered crismon. Its preparation was carried out by the cabinetmaker Frederic Labòria, who also collaborated with Gaudí on the Sagrada Familia.
A short time later, Gaudí received a new commission from Count Güell, the construction of his family home, on Nou de la Rambla street in Barcelona. The Güell Palace (1886-1888) follows the tradition of the great Catalan manor houses such as those on Montcada street. Gaudí designed a monumental entrance with magnificent doors with parabolic arches and openwork wrought iron bars, decorated with the coat of arms of Catalonia and a helmet with a winged dragon, the work of Joan Oñós. The interior hall stands out, which has a height of three floors; It is the central nucleus of the building, since it is surrounded by the main rooms of the palace, and stands out for its roof with a double dome with a paraboloid profile on the inside and conical on the outside, a typical solution of Byzantine art. In the gallery of the façade, Gaudí used an original system of catenary arches and columns with hyperboloidal capitals, a style not used before or after Gaudí. He carefully designed the interior of the palace, with sumptuous Mudejar-style decoration, where the wood and iron coffered ceilings. On the roof, the chimneys stand out, with geometric shapes, covered with brightly colored ceramics, as well as the tall lantern-shaped spire that is the outer finish of the dome of the central hall, also made of ceramic and topped with an iron weather vane..
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Between 1886 and 1902 the artist from Reus designed two stained glass windows for the Can Pujades Chapel in Vallgorguina: the first, dating from between 1886 and 1902, is a rose window about 90 cm in diameter, which represents the hand of God with the eye Biblical all-seeing, surrounded by three anagrams of Jesus, Mary and Joseph; the second, dated 1894, is a representation of the Archangel Michael, 75 × 24.5 cm. These works caused a certain controversy in 2014, when the Ministry of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Institute of Catalan Studies announced that two new works by Gaudí unknown until then had been discovered, within an inventory that was being made of stained glass windows from all Catalonia. However, it was later found that these works were previously known, and had appeared cited in specialized magazines and books in the Gaudinian corpus.
On the occasion of the Universal Exposition held in Barcelona's Ciudadela Park in 1888, Gaudí built the Pavilion of the Compañía Trasatlántica, owned by the Marquis of Comillas, in the Maritime Section of the event. He did it in the Granada Nasrid style, with horseshoe arches and stucco decoration; it subsisted until the opening of the Barcelona promenade in 1960. On the occasion of such an event, the Barcelona City Council commissioned the restoration of the Salón de Ciento and the Honor Staircase of the Casa de la Ciudad, together with the of an armchair for the regent queen; Of the project, only the armchair that the mayor Francisco de Paula Rius y Taulet gave to the queen was carried out.
Neo-Gothic Period
In this stage, Gaudí was inspired above all by medieval Gothic art, which he assumes in a free, personal way, trying to improve its structural solutions. Neo-Gothic was at that time one of the most successful historicist styles, especially as a result of the theoretical studies of Viollet-le-Duc. Gaudí studied Catalan, Balearic and Roussillon Gothic in depth, as well as Leonese and Castilian in his stays in León and Burgos, coming to the conviction that it was an imperfect style, half resolved. In his works, he eliminates the need for buttresses by using ruled surfaces, and suppresses excessive crests and fretwork.
A first exponent will be the Colegio de las Teresianas (1888-1889), on Ganduxer street in Barcelona, commissioned by San Enrique de Ossó. Gaudí complied with the will of the order to reflect austerity in the building, in compliance with the vow of poverty; Following the indications of the nuns, he designed a sober building, made of brick on the outside, and with some brick elements on the inside. He also incorporated wrought iron bars into the façade, one of his favorite materials, and crowned it with a set of battlements that suggest a castle, a possible allusion to the work of Saint Teresa The interior castle. the corners of the façade include some brick pinnacles with a helical column culminating in the four-armed cross, typical of Gaudí's works, and some ceramic shields with various defining symbols of the Teresian order. Inside there is a corridor that is famous for the succession of catenary arches it contains. These elegantly lined arches are not merely decorative, but have the function of supporting the roof and the upper floor. Gaudí used the parabolic arch as the ideal construction element, capable of supporting high weights through thin profiles.
The following commission was received by Gaudí from a clergyman friend from his native Reus, Joan Baptista Grau i Vallespinós, who, upon being named Bishop of Astorga, commissioned Gaudí to build an Episcopal Palace for that city, since it was recently he had burned down the previous building. Built between 1889 and 1915, it has a neo-Gothic air, with an articulated plan with four cylindrical towers, surrounded by a moat. The stone in which it is built (gray granite from the El Bierzo region) is respectful of the environment, especially with the cathedral that is in the immediate vicinity, as well as with nature, which in Astorga at the end of the 19th century was more present than it is today. The entrance portico has three large flared arches, made of ashlar stones separated from each other by inclined buttresses. The structure of the building is supported by pillars with decorated capitals and ribbed vaults on pointed arches of glazed ceramic. It is topped with a Mudejar-style crenellation. Gaudí abandoned the project in 1893, on the death of Bishop Grau, due to disagreements with the Cabildo, and it was completed in 1915 by Ricardo García Guereta. It is currently the Museum of the Roads.
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Another Gaudí project outside Catalonia was Casa Botines, in León (1891-1894), commissioned by Simón Fernández Fernández and Mariano Andrés Luna, fabric merchants from León, who received Gaudí's recommendation from Eusebi Güell, with whom they dealt in their business. Gaudí's project was an impressive neo-Gothic building, resolved with his unmistakable modernist style. The building was used to house the offices and warehouses of the weaving business on its ground floors, and at the same time had housing on the upper floors. The construction was carried out with walls of solid limestone stonework, arranged in the form of padding. The building is flanked by four cylindrical towers topped with high conical-shaped needles, made of slate, and surrounded by a moat with wrought iron grating. The windows are sash, with inclined projections to retain the snow, very frequent in the Leonese winter. The façade is in the Gothic style, with lobed arches, and has a clock and a sculpture of Saint George and the Dragon, the work of Llorenç Matamala. It currently houses the Gaudí Casa Botines Museum managed by the Spain-Duero Foundation.
In 1892 Gaudí received from Claudio López Bru, second Marquis of Comillas, the commission for some Catholic Franciscan Missions for the city of Tangier, in Morocco (at that time a Spanish colony). The project consisted of a complex made up of a church, a hospital and a school, and Gaudí conceived a structure with a quadrilobed plan, in the shape of five potentized crosses (the sign of the Franciscan missionaries in Morocco), with catenary arches and towers with a parabolic profile, with windows hyperboloidal. In the end, the project was not carried out, something that Gaudí deeply regretted, always keeping with him the sketch that he made of the complex. Despite everything, this project influenced him for the works of the Sagrada Familia, especially in the design of the towers, with a parabolic profile as in the Missions.
For the Güell family, in 1895 he designed a funerary chapel for the Monastery of Montserrat, an unrealized work of which few details are known. That year work finally began on the Bodegas Güell, the old project from 1882 for a hunting lodge and some wineries on the La Cuadra de Garraf estate (Sitges), owned by Eusebi Güell. Built between 1895 and 1897 under the direction of Francisco Berenguer, Gaudí's assistant, the wineries have a triangular frontal profile, with highly vertical roofs with steep stone slab slopes, topped by a set of chimneys and two bridges that connect it. to the old building. It has three floors: the ground floor for the garage, the house and a chapel covered with a catenary vault, with the altar in the center. The set is completed with a goal pavilion, where the wrought iron door stands out, in the shape of a fishing net.
In the municipality of San Gervasio de Cassolas (today a neighborhood of Barcelona), Gaudí was commissioned, by the widow of Jaume Figueras, to reform the Torre Bellesguard (1900-1916), a former summer palace of King Martín I the Human. Gaudí made a neo-Gothic project, respecting the previous building as much as possible; As always, he tried to integrate the architecture into the surrounding natural framework, which is why he carried out the construction with the slate stone of the place. The building has a square plan of 15 × 15 meters, with the vertices oriented to the four cardinal points. Built with stone and brick, it has much more vertical projection, aided by a frustoconical tower crowned with a four-armed cross, next to the Catalan flag and a royal crown. The house has a basement, ground floor, main floor and attic, with a hipped roof.
Naturalist stage
During this period, Gaudí perfected his personal style, drawing inspiration from the organic shapes of nature, putting into practice a whole series of new structural solutions originating from Gaudí's in-depth analysis of ruled geometry. To this the architect adds great creative freedom and an imaginative ornamental creation. Starting from a certain baroque style, his works acquire great structural richness, with shapes and volumes devoid of rationalist rigidity or any classical premise.
At the request of the company Hijos de Pedro Mártir Calvet, Gaudí built Casa Calvet (1898-1899), on Caspe street in Barcelona. The façade is made of ashlar stone from Montjuïc, adorned with wrought iron balconies and topped by two pediments, crowned with wrought iron crosses. Also noteworthy on the façade is the gallery on the main floor, decorated with plant and mythological motifs. In this project Gaudí used a certain baroque style, visible in the use of Solomonic columns, the decoration with floral themes and the roof project with a waterfall and flower pots with a rococo air. For this work he won in 1900 the prize for the best building of the year awarded by the Barcelona City Council.
An almost unknown work by Gaudí is the Casa Clapés (1899-1900), at Calle Escorial 125, commissioned by the painter Aleix Clapés, who collaborated on occasion with Gaudí, such as in the decoration of the Güell Palace and the Casa mila. It has a ground floor and three floors, with plastered walls and cast iron balconies. Due to its lack of decoration or original structural solutions, Gaudí's authorship was ignored until 1976, when the plans signed by the architect were found. In 1900 he renovated the house of Dr. Pere Santaló, at 32 Nou de la Rambla street, work equally of little importance. Santaló was a friend of Gaudí, whom he accompanied on his stay in Puigcerdà in 1911, and he was the one who recommended him to do manual labor for his rheumatism.
Also in 1900 he designed two banners: the one of the Orfeó Feliuà (of San Felíu de Codinas), made of brass, leather, cork and silk, with ornamental motifs based on the martyrdom of Saint Felix (a mill wheel), in the music (a staff and a treble clef) and the inscription “Orfeó Feliuà”; and that of the Virgin of Mercy of Reus, for the pilgrimage of the reusenses residing in Barcelona, which presents an image of Isabel Besora, the shepherdess to whom the Virgin appeared in 1592, the work of Aleix Clapés and, in the reverse, a rose and the flag of Catalonia. Precisely, that same year Gaudí made a draft of the Sanctuary of the Virgen de la Misericordia in Reus for the reform of the main façade of the church, which in the end was not carried out, since the Sanctuary board considered it onerous. This refusal made Gaudí feel very bad, leaving him with a certain resentment towards Reus, which could be the origin of his later affirmation that Riudoms was his birthplace.Between 1900 and 1902 Gaudí worked on the Casa Miralles, commissioned by the industrialist Hermenegildo Miralles; Gaudí only designed the fence wall and the access door, made of wavy-shaped masonry, with an iron door topped with a four-armed cross. Subsequently, the Miralles house was the work of Domingo Sugrañes, Gaudí's collaborating architect.
Gaudi's main project at the beginning of the XX century was Park Güell (1900-1914), a new commission by Eusebi Güell to build a residential development in the style of English garden cities. The project was not successful, since of the 60 plots into which the land was divided, only one was sold. Despite this, the accesses to the park and the service areas were built, displaying all of Gaudí's architectural genius and putting into practice many of his innovative structural solutions that will be emblematic of his organic style and which will culminate in the Sagrada Familia.. Park Güell is located in the so-called Montaña Pelada, in the Carmelo neighborhood of Barcelona. It was an abrupt place, with steep slopes that Gaudí avoided with a system of viaducts integrated into the terrain. The access to the park has two buildings, for the porter's office and administration, surrounded by a masonry wall and polychrome glazed ceramic. These entrance pavilions are a sample of Gaudí's plenitude, with Catalan vaulted ceilings in the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid. After the pavilions there is a stairway that leads to the upper levels, decorated with sculpted fountains where the dragon stands out, which has been become a symbol of the park and one of the most recognized emblems of Gaudí. This stairway leads to the Hipóstila Hall, which would have served as the urbanization market, made with large Doric order columns. Above this room is a large square in the shape of a Greek theatre, with the famous sliding bench covered in chopped ceramics (trencadís), the work of Josep Maria Jujol. The park show house, the work of by Francisco Berenguer, it was Gaudí's residence from 1906 to 1926, and currently houses the Gaudí House-Museum.
Related to this park is the garden of the old San Baudilio Asylum, an undocumented work but which bears great stylistic similarities with Count Güell's urbanization project, especially due to the presence of some trencadís very similar to those executed by Jujol. It would therefore be possible to assume that it was authored by Gaudí himself or perhaps by Jujol, or by some other of his close collaborators.
At this time Gaudí collaborated on an interesting collective project, the Monumental Rosary of Montserrat (1900-1916). Located on the road to the Santa Cueva de Montserrat, it was a series of sculptural groups that evoked the mysteries of the Virgin that are prayed in the Rosary. The best architects and sculptors of the time were involved in this project, and it is a unique example of Catalan modernism. Gaudí projected the First Mystery of Glory, which alluded to the Holy Sepulchre, with a statue of The Risen Christ, the work of Josep Llimona, and the group of Three Marys sculpted by Dionisio Renart. Another monumental project devised by Gaudí for Montserrat was never carried out: it would have consisted of crowning the Cavall Bernat (one of the mountain peaks) with a viewpoint in the shape of a royal crown, incorporating a twenty-meter shield of Catalonia on the wall. tall.
In 1901 Gaudí decorated the house of Isabel Güell López, Marchioness of Castelldosrius, daughter of Eusebi Güell. Located at 19 Junta de Comerç street, the house had been built in 1885 and renovated between 1901 and 1904; the house was destroyed by a bomb during the Civil War. The following year Gaudí intervened in the decoration of Bar Torino, owned by Flaminio Mezzalama, located at Paseo de Gracia 18; Gaudí designed the ornamentation of the Arab Room of said establishment, made with pressed and varnished cardboard tiles, in the Arabic style (now disappeared).
A project of great interest to Gaudí was the restoration of the Cathedral of Mallorca (1903-1914), commissioned by the bishop of that city, Pere Campins. Gaudí planned a series of actions such as dismantling the baroque altarpiece from the main altar, exposing the episcopal chair, moving the choir from the center of the nave and placing it in the presbytery, leaving the Trinity chapel open, placing new choirs and pulpits, decorate the cathedral with electric lighting, unblind the Gothic windows of the Royal Chapel and provide them with stained glass windows, place a large canopy over the main altar and complete the decoration with paintings. The works were directed by Juan Rubió, Gaudí's assistant, with the participation of Josep Maria Jujol and the painters Joaquín Torres García, Iu Pascual and Jaume Llongueras. Gaudí abandoned the project in 1914 due to differences with the cathedral chapter.
One of Gaudí's biggest commissions and most emblematic works was Casa Batlló (1904-1906). Commissioned by Josep Batlló i Casanovas to reform a previous building by Emilio Sala Cortés from 1875, Gaudí focused on the façade, the main floor, the light well and the roof, and built a fifth floor for service personnel. For this work he had the collaboration of his assistants Domingo Sugrañes, Juan Rubió and José Canaleta. The façade was made of sandstone from Montjuïc, carved according to ruled surfaces in a warped shape; the columns are bone-shaped, with plant representations. Gaudí kept the rectangular shape of the balconies of the previous building —with mask-shaped iron railings—, giving the rest of the façade an undulating shape in an upward direction. He also covered the façade with ceramic pieces of glass of various colors ( trencadís ), which Gaudí obtained from the waste from the Pelegrí glassworks. The internal patio was covered with a glass skylight supported by a double T-shaped iron structure, which rests on a series of catenary arches. On the roof, the helical shaped chimneys topped by conical caps stand out, covered in transparent glass in their central part and ceramic in the upper part, and topped by transparent glass balls filled with sand of different colors. The façade culminates in a vault formed by catenary arches covered with two layers of brick, covered with glazed ceramic in the form of scales (in yellow, green and blue tones), reminiscent of the back of a dragon; on the left side there is a cylindrical tower with the anagrams of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and with the Gaudinian cross with four arms.
In 1904, commissioned by the painter Lluís Graner, he carried out the decoration project for the Sala Mercè, on the Rambla de los Estudios, one of the first cinemas in Barcelona; the room imitated a grotto, inspired by the Cuevas del Drach in Majorca. He also designed a chalet for Graner in La Bonanova, of which only the foundations and the main door were built, with three openings: for people, carriages and birds; the building would have had a structure similar to the Casa Batlló or the park Güell gate. A few years later, the bricklayer Julián Bardier —who worked on the Graner chalet— built a replica of the Puerta de los Pájaros in Comillas (Cantabria).
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The same year he built the Badia Workshop, for Josep and Lluís Badia Miarnau, blacksmiths and forgers who collaborated with Gaudí in several of his works, such as the Batlló and Milà houses, Güell Park and the Sagrada Familia; Located at 278 Nàpols street, it was a building with simple lines, made of masonry (now disappeared). At that time he also designed a hydraulic paving of hexagonal tiles for Casa Batlló, although in the end they were not placed in that location and were reused for Casa Milà; they were green and were decorated with seaweed, a snail and a starfish. This tile was later chosen to pave the Paseo de Gracia in Barcelona.
The following year he built the Catllaràs chalet-refuge, in La Pobla de Lillet, for the Asland cement factory, owned by Eusebi Güell. It has a simple but very original structure, in the shape of a pointed arch, with two flights of semicircular stairs to lead to the two upper floors. In this same town, between 1905 and 1907, he built the gardens of Can Artigas, in the area called Fuente de la Magnesia, commissioned by the textile industrialist Joan Artigas i Alart; Operators who had worked in Park Güell were involved in this work, carrying out a project similar to that of the famous Barcelona park.
In 1906 he designed the bridge over the Torrent de Pomeret, between Sarriá and Sant Gervasio. This torrent was precisely between two works by Gaudí, the Torre Bellesguard and the Chalet Graner, for which reason they asked the architect for a study to bridge the gap: Gaudí designed an interesting structure made up of juxtaposed triangles that would support the framework of the bridge, following the style of the viaducts that he had made in Park Güell. It would have been built of cement, and would have been 154 meters long and 15 meters high; the railing would be covered with tile, with an inscription dedicated to Saint Eulalia. The project was not approved by the Sarriá City Council.
The same year he apparently intervened in the Damià Mateu tower, in Llinars del Vallés, in collaboration with his assistant Francisco Berenguer, although it is not clear who was responsible for the project or to what degree each intervened. The style of the building evokes the first works of Gaudí, such as the Casa Vicens or the Güell Pavilions; It had an entrance gate in the shape of a fishing net, currently installed in Park Güell. The house was demolished in 1939. Also in 1906 he designed a new banner, this time for the Guild of Locksmiths and Blacksmiths, for the 1910 Corpus Christi procession in Barcelona cathedral. It was dark green, with the Barcelona coat of arms on the upper left edge, and an image of Saint Eloy, patron saint of the guild, with typical instruments of the trade. The flag was burned in July 1936.
Another of Gaudí's biggest commissions and one of Gaudí's most praised works will be the Casa Milà, better known as La Pedrera (1906-1910), commissioned by Pedro Milá y Camps. Gaudí conceived the house around two large curvilinear courtyards, with a structure of stone, brick and cast iron pillars, and frameworks of iron girders. Its entire façade is made of limestone from Villafranca del Panadés, except for the upper part, which is covered in white tiles, evoking a snow-capped mountain. It has a total of five floors, plus an attic —made entirely with catenary arches— and the roof, as well as two large interior patios, one circular and the other oval. On the roof, the stairwells stand out, topped with the four-armed cross, as well as the chimneys, covered with ceramics with shapes that suggest soldiers' helmets. The interior decoration was carried out by Josep Maria Jujol and the painters Iu Pascual, Xavier Nogués and Aleix Clapés. The façade would have been topped by a sculptural group of stone, metal and glass with the Virgen del Rosario surrounded by the archangels Michael and Gabriel, four meters high. A sketch was made by the sculptor Carles Mani, but due to the events of the Tragic Week of 1909 the project was abandoned.
On the occasion of the seventh centenary of the birth of King James I, Gaudí designed a monument in his memory in 1907. It would have been located in the Plaza del Rey, and would have also involved the reform of the adjacent buildings: a new roof for the cathedral, as well as the completion of its towers and dome; placement of three vases on the buttresses of the Chapel of Santa Ágata, dedicated to the invocations of the Lauretan litanies (Vas Spirituale, Vas Honorabile and Vas Insigne Devotiones), as well as the figure of an angel on the bell tower of the chapel; Finally, open a large square next to the wall (current Ramón Berenguer el Grande square). The project was not carried out because the Barcelona City Council did not like it.
In 1908 Gaudí was credited with an unrealized project for a large hotel-skyscraper in New York, the Hotel Atracción, commissioned by two American businessmen whose names are unknown. It would have been 360 meters high (more than the Empire State Building), with a taller central body in the shape of a paraboloid, topped with a star, and flanked by four building bodies dedicated to museums, art galleries and auditoriums, with shapes similar to Casa Mila. Inside, it would have had five large superimposed rooms, one dedicated to each continent. There are doubts about the authorship of the project.
The last project for his great patron, Eusebi Güell, was a church for the Colonia Güell, in Santa Coloma de Cervelló, of which only the lower nave was built (known today as the Colonia Güell Crypt). (1908-1918). Worker's colony project started in 1890, the factory, service buildings and housing for the workers had been built. What would have been the church of the Colony was designed by Gaudí in 1898, although the first stone was not laid until October 4, 1908. Unfortunately, only the lower nave of the church was built, since on the death of Count Güell in 1918 his sons left the project. Gaudí designed an oval church with five naves, one central and two more on each side. He devised a complex fully integrated into nature, a reflection of Gaudí's concept of architecture as an organic structure. A portico of hyperbolic paraboloid vaults precedes the crypt, the first time that Gaudí used this structure and the first example of paraboloidal vaults in the history of architecture. In the crypt, the large windows stand out, hyperboloid in shape, covered with colored glass shaped like flower petals or butterfly wings. Inside, circular brick pillars alternate with inclined basalt columns from Castellfullit de la Roca.
Final stage: culmination of her style
In the last years of his career, dedicated almost exclusively to the Sagrada Família, Gaudí reached the culmination of his naturalistic style, making a synthesis of all the solutions and styles tried up to that time. Gaudí achieves perfect harmony in the interrelation between structural and ornamental elements, between plastic and aesthetics, between function and form, between content and container, achieving the integration of all the arts into a structured and logical whole.
We have the first example of its final stage in a simple but very ingenious building, the Escuelas de la Sagrada Familia, a small building used as a school for the children of the workers who worked in the temple. Built in 1909, it has a rectangular plan measuring 10 x 20 metres, and consisted of three classrooms, a hall and a chapel. The construction was carried out with exposed brick, in three superimposed layers, following the traditional Catalan technique. Both the walls and the roof have an undulating shape, which gives the structure a feeling of lightness but at the same time great resistance. The Sagrada Família Schools have been an example of constructive genius and have served as a source of inspiration for many architects, due to their simplicity, resistance, volume originality, functionality and geometric purity.
In the same year he could have collaborated with his assistant, Francisco Berenguer, in the parish of San Juan Bautista de Gracia (Barcelona), where he could have been responsible for the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and the jubé. This possible authorship, not documented, was made known by the Gaudinian writer and biographer Josep Maria Tarragona at the Second Gaudí World Congress held in 2016. According to this expert, this work could be awarded to the architect based on his stylistic analysis, and given He realized that Berenguer did not have the title of architect, so he needed accreditation for his work. The chapel is underground, with an apse and four domes covered with trencadís, decorated with a Maltese cross with twelve spikes, a vine with twelve bunches of grapes — alluding to the twelve apostles — and various inscriptions. In latin. For its part, the jubé is located on a side facade of the building, and is formed by a balcony surrounded by choirs, with a crucifixion on top.
In May 1910 Gaudí spent a brief stay in Vic, where he was commissioned to design lampposts for the city's Plaza Mayor, to commemorate the first centenary of the birth of Jaume Balmes. They were obelisk-shaped lampposts, with a base and shaft made of basalt stone from Castellfollit de la Roca and wrought iron arms, topped by a four-armed cross; the decoration was of plant motifs and included the dates of birth and death of Balmes. The lampposts were demolished in 1924, as they were in poor condition.
That same year, on the occasion of Eusebi Güell's obtaining the title of count, Gaudí designed a coat of arms for his great patron: he made a shield with a catenary-shaped lower part, so typical of Gaudí; he divided it in two with the figure of the Güell Palace temple, placing a dove with a toothed wheel on the right — alluding to the Colonia Güell in Santa Coloma de Cervelló (coloma is a dove in Catalan)—, with the legend "ahir pastor" (yesterday a shepherd) and on the left an owl perched on a half moon —symbol of prudence and wisdom— with the legend "avuy senyor" (today sir). The shield is finished off by a helmet with the county crown and the dove symbol of the Holy Spirit.
In 1912 he built two pulpits for the church of Santa María de Blanes: the one on the Gospel side had a hexagonal plan, decorated with the dove of the Holy Spirit and the Latin names of the four evangelists and the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit; that of the Epistle had the names of the apostles who wrote epistles (Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Jude Thaddeus and Saint James the Less), with the three theological virtues and the flames of the Pentecostal fire. These pulpits were burned in July 1936. For the restoration of Manresa Cathedral, Gaudí was asked in 1915 to make an assessment of the preliminary project carried out by the architect Alexandre Soler i March, in charge of the works. Gaudí suggested some corrections, such as placing a portico next to the baptistery, a gabled roof over the main nave, and a room above the portico for the museum and archive.
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Since 1915, Gaudí devoted himself practically exclusively to his masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia, which represents the synthesis of all the architectural evolution of the great architect. After the completion of the crypt and the apse, still in neo-Gothic style, the rest of the temple was conceived in an organic style, imitating the shapes of nature, where ruled geometric shapes abound. The interior should resemble a forest, with a set of inclined tree columns, in a helical shape, creating a structure that is both simple and resistant. Gaudí applied to the Sagrada Família all his discoveries previously experienced in works such as Park Güell or the Colonia Güell crypt, managing to create a temple that is structurally perfect as well as harmonious and aesthetic.
The Sagrada Familia has a Latin cross plan, with five central naves and a transept with three naves, and an apse with seven chapels. It boasts three façades dedicated to the Birth, Passion and Glory of Jesus, and when it is finished it will have 18 towers: four on each portal making a total of twelve for the apostles, four on the transept invoking the evangelists, one on the apse dedicated to the Virgin and the central tower-dome in honor of Jesus, which will reach 170 meters in height. The temple will have two sacristies next to the apse, and three large chapels: the Assumption in the apse and the Baptism and Penance next to the main façade; Likewise, it will be surrounded by a cloister designed for processions and to isolate the temple from the outside. Gaudí applied a high symbolic content to the Sagrada Família, both in architecture and sculpture, giving each part of the temple a religious significance.
During Gaudí's lifetime, only the crypt, the apse and, partially, the Nativity façade were completed — of which Gaudí only saw the tower of San Bernabé crowned. Upon his death, his assistant, Domingo Sugrañes, took charge of the construction; Subsequently, it has been under the direction of various architects, with Jordi Faulí i Oller being director of the works since 2016. Artists such as Llorenç and Joan Matamala, Carles Mani, Jaume Busquets, Joaquim Ros i Bofarull, Etsuro Sotoo and Josep Maria Subirachs, author of the decoration of the Passion façade.
During the last years of his life, apart from his dedication to the Sagrada Família, he only took part in small projects that were not carried out: in 1916, when the Bishop of Vic Josep Torras i Bages, a friend of Gaudí, died, he designed a monument in homage to the clergyman, which he planned to install in front of the Passion façade of the Sagrada Família. He made a sketch of the project, which ultimately was not carried out, and a plaster bust of Bishop Torras was made, the work of Joan Matamala under the orders of Gaudí; Installed in the Sagrada Família —it would have formed part of the monument—, it was destroyed in 1936. The construction of this monument is currently planned, in the set of works on the Passion Facade of the Sagrada Família. Another project for a monument commemorative, equally unrealized, was the one dedicated to Enric Prat de la Riba, which would have been located in Castelltersol, birthplace of the Catalan politician. The project dates from 1918, and would have consisted of a tall tower with two porticoes and a spire topped with an iron structure from which the Catalan flag would hang. The drawing for the project was by Lluís Bonet i Garí, Gaudí's assistant.
In 1922 Gaudí received a commission from the Franciscan Father Angélico Aranda for a church dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels in Rancagua (Chile). Gaudí excused himself by saying that he was occupying his time exclusively with the Sagrada Familia, but sent to Chile some sketches of the Assumption Chapel that he had designed for the apse of the Sagrada Família, which more or less coincided somewhat with those requested by Father Aranda. This project was not carried out, although at present there is an intention to resume it —by the Chilean architect Christian Matzner—, and finally build a work designed by Gaudí in the New Continent. For this purpose some land was acquired — called Parque Catalunya— for the construction of the church and, in 2017, its construction began, although the works stopped due to the bankruptcy of the company.
That same year, Gaudí received a request for the construction of a monumental train station for Barcelona (the future Estación de Francia). Gaudí suggested an iron structure in the form of a large suspended awning, an original solution well ahead of his time; Perhaps for this reason, the project intimidated the engineers in charge, who declined Gaudí's offer. The last known projects of the architect are that of a chapel for Colonia Calvet in Torelló, from 1923, and that of a pulpit for Valencia (the exact location is unknown), from 1924. Since then, Gaudí has worked exclusively for the Sagrada Família, until the fateful day of the accident that caused his death.
Main works by Gaudí
| Work | Chronology | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Cooperativa Obrera Mataronense | 1878-1882 | Killed |
| The Capricho | 1883-1885 | Comillas |
| Casa Vicens | 1883-1888 | Barcelona |
| Temple of the Holy Family | 1883-1926 | Barcelona |
| Pavilions of the Finca Güell | 1884-1887 | Barcelona |
| Güell Palace | 1886-1890 | Barcelona |
| Colegio Teresiano de Barcelona | 1888-1889 | Barcelona |
| Episcopal Palace of Astorga | 1889-1915 | Astorga |
| Casa Botines | 1891-1894 | León |
| Bodegas Güell | 1895-1897 | Sitges |
| Casa Calvet | 1898-1900 | Barcelona |
| Bellesguard Tower | 1900-1909 | Barcelona |
| Güell Park | 1900-1914 | Barcelona |
| Portal Miralles | 1901 | Barcelona |
| Restoration of the Cathedral of Mallorca | 1903-1914 | Palma de Mallorca |
| Casa Batlló | 1904-1906 | Barcelona |
| Jardines de Can Artigas | 1905-1906 | The village of Lillet |
| Casa Milà | 1906-1910 | Barcelona |
| Cripta de la Colonia Güell | 1908-1915 | Colonia Güell (Santa Coloma de Cervelló) |
Gaudi's collaborators
The enormous task that Gaudí faced —not in the number of works, but in their complexity, cared for down to the last detail— meant that he needed the collaboration of a large number of assistants, both architects and artisans and professionals from all sectors. Gaudí always set the work guidelines, but left room for maneuver to the individual capacities of all his collaborators. Proof of his mastery both in the trade and in human relations is that he knew how to bring together a large number of professionals, all with different idiosyncrasies and ways of working, and create an integrated and perfectly structured team.
Its collaborators include:
- Architects: Francisco Berenguer, Josep Maria Jujol, Cristóbal Cascante, Josep Francesc Ràfols, Cèsar Martinell, Joan Bergós, Francesc Folguera, José Canaleta, Juan Rubió, Domingo Sugrañes, Jaume Bayó i Font, Francesc Quintana, Isidre Puig i Boada, Lluís Bonet i Garí.
- Sculptors: Carles Mani, Joan Flets, Llorenç Matamala, Joan Matamala, Josep Llimona, Antoni Riba, Vicenç Vilarrubias.
- Painters: Ricard Opisso, Aleix Clapés, Iu Pascual, Xavier Nogués, Jaume Llongueras, Francesc Torrescassana, Joaquín Torres García.
- Construction companies and masters: Agustí Massip, Josep Bayó i Font, Claudi Alsina i Bonafont, Josep Pardo i Casanova and his nephew Julià Bardier i Pardo.
- Craftsmen: Eudald Puntí (carpentry and forge), Joan Oñós (forja), Lluís and Josep Badia i Miarnau (forja), Salvador Gabarró (forja), Joan Bertran (yesería), Joan Munné (ebanisteria), Frederic Labòria (ebanisteria), Antoni Rigalt i Blanch (vidrinea), Josep Pelegrí
World Heritage Site
Seven of Gaudí's works have been declared World Heritage Sites by Unesco: in 1984 Park Güell, Palau Güell and Casa Milà; and in 2005 the Nativity façade, the crypt and the apse of the Sagrada Familia, Casa Vicens and Casa Batlló in Barcelona, together with the crypt of Colonia Güell in Santa Coloma de Cervelló.
Declaring these works by Gaudí as World Heritage means recognizing their exceptional universal value. In accordance with its Outstanding Universal Value Evaluation Criteria, the works meet three of these criteria, being reasoned by UNESCO as follows:
- «Criterio (i): The work of Antoni Gaudí represents an exceptional and remarkable creative contribution in the development of architecture and the construction of the end of the centuryXIX and principles XX.».
- «Criterio (ii): Gaudí's work represents an important exchange of values, closely associated with the cultural and artistic currents of his time represented by Catalan Modernism. It has anticipated and influenced a good number of forms and techniques that have played its role in the development of the modern construction of the centuryXX.».
- «Criterio (iv): Gaudí's work includes several notable examples of building typology in the architecture of the beginning of the centuryXX.both residential and public, in the development of which he has made a significant and creative contribution».
Gaudí in popular culture
The figure of Gaudí has been recreated in literary and cinematographic works.
- Gaudí (1960), directed by José María Argemí, he had Carlos Mendy on the role of Gaudí.
- José Luis López Vázquez starring the film Antonio Gaudí, an unfinished vision (1974), led by John Alaimo.
- In 1989 it was premiered Gaudí, biography of the architect led by Manuel Huerga. Carles Sabater and Jesus Orus represented him as a child, Santi Claramunt of young and Luis Padrós of old.
- In 2002 the musical was released Gaudí, the musical of Barcelona, in Barcelona Teatre Musical, with music by Albert Guinovart and figurines by María Araujo, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of the architect. The figurines are preserved in the María Araujo Fund of the Center for Documentation and Museum of the Performing Arts.
- In 2004 the opera was premiered Gaudí from 1989 to 1992 by Joan Guinjoan.
- Writer Daniel Sánchez Pardos recreates his youth (fantase it) in the novel G.