ANTONIO GAUDI

his BIOGRAPHY

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (Catalan pronunciation: [ənˈtɔni ɣəwˈði]) (Riudoms or Reus, 25 June 1852 – Barcelona, 10 June 1926) was a Spanish Catalan architect and the best-known representative of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works are marked by a highly individual style and the vast majority of them are situated in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, including his magnum opus, the Sagrada Família.

Much of Gaudí's work was marked by the four passions of his life: architecture, nature, religion and his love for Catalonia. Gaudí meticulously studied every detail of his creations, integrating into his architecture a series of crafts, in which he himself was skilled, such as ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork forging and carpentry. He also introduced new techniques in the treatment of the materials, such as his famous trencadís, made of waste ceramic pieces. After a few years under the influence of neo-Gothic art, and certain oriental tendencies, Gaudí became part of the Catalan Modernista movement which was then at its peak, towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Gaudí's work, however, transcended mainstream Modernisme, culminating in an organic style that was inspired by nature without losing the influence of the experiences gained earlier in his career. Rarely did Gaudí draw detailed plans of his works and instead preferred to create them as three-dimensional scale models, moulding all details as he was conceiving them in his mind.

Gaudí’s work has widespread international appeal, and there are innumerable studies devoted to his way of understanding architecture. Today he is admired by both professionals and the general public: his masterpiece, the Sagrada Família, is one of the most visited monuments in Spain. Between 1984 and 2005 seven of his works were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. He awakened to his Roman Catholic faith during his life and many religious symbols can be seen in his works, a fact which has led to his being nicknamed "God's Architect" and calls for him to be beatified. 

Birth, childhood and studies

Antoni Gaudí was born in 1852, to the industrial boilermaker Francesc Gaudí i Serra (1813–1906) and Antònia Cornet i Bertran (1819–1876). He was the youngest of five children, of whom three survived to adulthood: Rosa (1844–1879), Francesc (1851–1876) and Antoni. Gaudí’s family origins go back to the Auvergne region in southern France, from where one of his ancestors, Joan Gaudí, a hawker, moved to Catalonia in the 17th century; the origin of his name could be Gaudy or Gaudin.

Gaudís exact birthplace is unknown because no documents stating it were kept, leading to a controversy about whether it was Reus or Riudoms (two neighbouring municipalities of the Baix Camp district. In most of Gaudí's identification documents from both his student and professional years, Reus is given as his birthplace. Nonetheless, Gaudí himself stated on various occasions that it was Riudoms, where his paternal family were from. What is known is that he was baptized in the church of Sant Pere Apòstol in Reus the day after his birth. The name that appears on his baptismal certificate is "Antoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet". Gaudí felt a deep appreciation for his native land, and his great sense of pride of being from the Mediterranean is a proof of this. It had a notable influence on his architecture: Gaudí used to say that Mediterranean people have an innate sense for art and design, that they are creative and original, whereas Nordic people are more technical and repetitive. In Gaudí’s words:

”We own the image. Fantasy comes from the ghosts. Fantasy is what people in the North own. We are concrete. The image comes from the Mediterranean. Orestes knows his way, where Hamlet is torn apart by his doubts”

The time spent in his native land helped Gaudí to get to know and study nature profoundly, above all his summer stays in the Mas de la Calderera, home of the Gaudí family in Riudoms. He liked the contact with nature and because of this he later on became a member of the Centre Excursionista de Catalunya (1879), an organisation with which he made numerous trips around Catalonia and southern France. Sometimes, he used to horse-ride, or walked around ten kilometres a day.

Young Gaudí was of a sickly nature; he suffered from rheumatism from childhood, which led to his rather reticent and reserved character. This may also have been the reason for his becoming a vegetarian along with Dr. Kneipp’s hygienist theories. Because of these beliefs—and for religious reasons—he sometimes imposed severe fasting on himself. He took this to a point where it became life threatening, such as in 1894, when he fell seriously ill as the result of a lengthy period of fast.

Gaudí’s first studies were at the nursery school run by Francesc Berenguer, whose son, also called Francesc, would later become one of Gaudí’s main assistants. Subsequently, he attended the Piarists school in Reus; his talent for drawing stood out during his participation in the seminar El Arlequín (the Harlequin).

He also worked as an apprentice in the “Vapor Nou” textile mill in Reus for some time. In 1868 he moved to Barcelona to study teaching in the Convent del Carme. During his adolescence he was interested in utopian socialism and with his fellow students Eduard Toda i Güell and Josep Ribera i Sans he planned a restoration of the Poblet monastery that would have transformed it into a Utopian phalanstère.

Between 1875 and 1878, Gaudí completed his compulsory military service in the Infantry regiment in Barcelona as a Military Administrator. He spent the majority of his service on sick leave, which allowed him to continue his studies. Due to his position he was not forced to fight during the Third Carlist War, which took place during this period. In 1876 his mother died at the age of 57, and so did his brother Francesc, 25, who had only recently graduated as a physician; he never got to practice his profession. Gaudí studied architecture at the Llotja School and the Barcelona Higher School of Architecture, from which he graduated in 1878. Apart from his architecture classes, he attended French lectures and studied history, economics, philosophy and aesthetics. His grades were average, some of them were fails; Gaudí cared more about his own interests than those of the official courses’. When handing him his degree, Elies Rogent, director of Barcelona Architecture School, said: ”We have given this academic title either to a fool or a genius. Time will show.”

To finance his studies, Gaudí worked as a draughtsman for various architects and constructors such as Leandre Serrallach, Joan Martorell, Emili Sala Cortés, Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano and Josep Fontserè. Maybe that was why Gaudí, when receiving his degree, said to his friend the sculptor Llorenç Matamala, with his ironical sense of humour:

”Llorenç, they’re saying I’m an architect now”

Adulthood and his professional work

Gaudí’s first projects were the lampposts he designed for the Plaça Reial in Barcelona, the unfinished Girossi newsstands and the Cooperativa Obrera Mataronense (Workers' Cooperative of Mataró). He became well known through his first important commission, the Casa Vicens, and subsequently received increasingly more significant requests. At the Paris World Fair in 1878 Gaudí displayed a showcase he had produced for the glove manufacturer Comella. Its modernista design, which was at the same time functional and aesthetic, impressed the Catalan industrialist Eusebi Güell, who later on contacted the architect to request him to carry out various projects he had in mind. 

This was the starting point of a long friendship and a patronage which bore fruit with some of the most distinguished of Gaudí’s works: the Güell wine cellars, the Güell pavilions, the Palau Güell (Güell palace), the Parc Güell (Güell park) and the crypt of the church of the Colònia Güell. He also became a friend of the marquis of Comillas, the father-in-law of count Güell, for whom he designed "El Capricho" in Comillas. In 1883 Gaudí accepted responsibility for the recently-initiated works of the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family, more commonly referred to in English as the Sagrada Família). 

Gaudí changed the original project completely, making this his world famous and much-admired masterpiece. From 1915 until his death he devoted himself entirely to this project. Given the number of commissions he began receiving, he had to rely on a professional team to be able to work on various projects simultaneously. His team consisted of professionals from all fields of construction. Several of the architects who worked under him made their own name in the field later on, such as Josep Maria Jujol,Joan Rubió, Cèsar Martinell, Francesc Folguera and Josep Francesc Ràfols. In 1885, Gaudí moved to rural Sant Feliu de Codines to escape the cholera epidemic that was ravaging Barcelona. He lived in Francesc Ullar’s house, for whom he designed a dinner table as a sign of his gratitude.

The 1888 World Fair was one of the major events of the time in the Catalan capital and was a starting point for Modernisme. The leading architects of the time displayed their best works, and Gaudí participated with the building he had designed for the Compañía Trasatlántica (Transatlantic Company). He received a commission to restructure the Saló de Cent of the Barcelona City Council that was not carried out in the end. 

In the first years of the 1890s, Gaudí received two commissions from outside of Catalonia: one for the Bishop's Palace of Astorga and the other for the Casa Botines in León. These works spread the fame and prestige of the Reus-born architect across Spain. In 1891, he travelled to Málaga and Tangiers to examine the plot of land of a project for Franciscan Catholic Missions that the 2nd marquis of Comillas had requested from him. The project was never executed, but the towers Gaudí had designed for the Missions served him as a model for the towers of the Church of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona.

In 1899 Gaudí became a member of the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc (Saint Luke artistic circle), a Catholic artistic society founded in 1893 by the bishop Josep Torras i Bagesand the brothers Josep and Joan Llimona. He also became a member of the Lliga Espiritual de la Mare de Déu de Montserrat (spiritual league of Our lady of Montserrat), another Catholic Catalan organisation. This demonstrates the conservative and religious character of his political thought, closely linked to the defence of the cultural identity of the Catalan people. Despite the apparent contradiction between the Utopian ideals of his youth and his subsequent change of direction towards more conservative views, this evolution can be considered natural, bearing in mind the profound spirituality of the architect. In Cèsar Martinell’s words, Gaudí “substituted philanthropy with Christian charity”.

At the beginning of the century, Gaudí was working on numerous projects which all reflected the change in his style, which was becoming increasingly more personal and inspired by nature. In 1900, he received an award for the best building of the year from the Barcelona City Council for his Casa Calvet. During the first decade of the century Gaudí dedicated himself to projects like the Casa Figueras (Figueras house), better known as Bellesguard, the Parc Güell, an urbanisation project that had no success, and the restoration of the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca, for which he visited Majorca several times. Between 1904 and 1910 he constructed the Casa Batlló (Batlló house) and the Casa Milà (Milá house), two of his most emblematic works.

As a result of Gaudi’s increasing fame, in 1902 the painter Joan Llimona chose Gaudí’s features to represent Saint Philip Neri in the paintings in the aisle of the Sant Felip Neri church in Barcelona. Together with Joan Santaló, son of his friend the physician Pere Santaló, he founded a company to make wought iron the same year, a project that failed in the end.

After moving to Barcelona, Gaudí frequently changed his address: as a student he lived in residences, generally in the area of the Gothic Quarter; when he started his career he moved around several rented flats in the Eixample area. Finally, in 1906, he settled in a house in the Güell Park that he owned and which had been constructed by his assistant Francesc Berenguer as a showcase property for the estate. 

Nowadays it serves as the Gaudí Museum. There he lived with his father (who died in 1906 at the age of 93) and his niece Rosa Egea Gaudí (who died in 1912 at the age of 36). He lived in the house until 1925, a few months before his death, when he set off to reside in the workshop of the Sagrada Família. One of the events that had a profound impact on Gaudí’s personality was the Tragic week in 1909; Gaudí remained in his house in the Güell Park during those days, but given the anticlerical atmosphere and the attacks on churches and convents he was worried about the safety of the Sagrada Família, which fortunately was not affected.

In 1910, an exhibition in the Grand Palais of Paris was devoted to his work, during the annual salón of the Société des Beaux-Arts (fine arts society) of France. Gaudí participated on the invitation of count Güell, displaying a series of pictures, plans and plaster scale models of several of his works. Although he participated hors concours, he received very good reviews from the French press. A large part of this exposition could be seen the following year at the I Salón Nacional de Arquitectura that took place in the municipal exhibition hall of Buen Retiro in Madrid.

During the Paris exposition in May 1910, Gaudí spent a holiday in Vic, where he designed two lampposts made of basalt and wrought iron for the Plaça Major of Vic, for Jaume Balmes’s centenary. The following year he was obliged to spend some time in Puigcerdà due to tuberculosis; during this time he conceived the idea for the façade of the Passion of the Sagrada Família. Due to his state of health, on 9 June he made his will at the office of the notary Ramon Cantó i Figueres; but luckily he recovered completely.

The decade from 1910 was a hard one for Gaudí as it was full of tragedy: the deaths of his niece Rosa in 1912, and his main collaborator Francesc Berenguer in 1914; a severe economic crisis paralysed work on the Sagrada Família in 1915; in 1916 his friend Josep Torras i Bages, bishop of Vic, died; in 1917 the works at the Colonia Güell were interrupted; in 1918 his friend and patron Eusebi Güell died.Perhaps because of all these tragedies he devoted himself entirely the Sagrada Família from 1915, taking refuge in his work. Gaudí confessed to his collaborators:

”My good friends are dead; I have no family and no clients, no fortune nor anything. Now I can dedicate myself entirely to the Church” 

Gaudí dedicated the last years of his life entirely to the “Cathedral of the poor”, as it was commonly known, for which he even took alms in order to continue the works. Apart from his dedication to this cause, he participated in few other activities, the majority of which were related to religion: in 1916 he participated in a course about Gregorian chant at the Palau de la Música Catalana taught by the Benedictine monk Gregori M. Sunyol.

Gaudí lived his life devoted entirely to his profession, remaining single all his life. It seems that it was only on one occasion that he felt attracted to a woman, Josefa Moreu, teacher at the Mataró Cooperative, in 1884, but this was not reciprocated. From then on, Gaudí took refuge in his deep religiousness, which gave him profound spiritual peace. Gaudí is often depicted as unsociable and unpleasant, a man of gruff reactions and arrogant gestures. However, those who were close to him described him as friendly and polite, pleasant to talk to and faithful to his friends. Among these, his patrons Eusebi Güell and the bishop of Vic, Josep Torras i Bages, stand out, as well as the writers Joan Maragall and Jacint Verdaguer, the physician Pere Santaló and some of his most faithful collaborators, such as Francesc Berenguer and Llorenç Matamala.

Gaudí’s personal appearance—Nordic features, blond hair and blue eyes—changed radically over the course of time: he was no longer a young man with a dandy appearance (costly suits, well-groomed hair and beard, gourmet taste, frequent visits to the theatre and the opera—he even used to visit his sites in his horse carriage). When older, he became a man of strict simplicity, who ate with frugality, used old, worn-out suits, and neglected his appearance to the extent that sometimes he was taken for a beggar, such as after the accident that caused his death.

Gaudí left hardly any written documents, apart from technical reports of his works required by official authorities, some letters sent to friends (above all to Joan Maragall) and a few journal articles. Some of his quotes collected by his assistants and disciples have been conserved, above all by Josep Francesc Ràfols, Joan Bergós, Cèsar Martinell and Isidre Puig i Boada. The only written document Gaudí left is known as the Manuscrito de Reus (Reus Manuscript) (1873–1878), a kind of student diary in which he collected diverse impressions of architecture and decorating, putting forward his ideas on the subject. His analysis of the Christian church and of his ancestral house stand out, as well as a text about ornamentation and a reminder for the design of a desk.

Gaudí was always in favour of Catalonia; however, he never wanted to get involved in politics. Some politicians, such as Francesc Cambó and Enric Prat de la Riba suggested he run for deputy, but he refused. Nonetheless, he had various arguments with the police. In 1920 he was beaten by police officers in a tumult during the Floral Games celebrations; on 11 September 1924, National Day of Catalonia; during a demonstration against the banning of the Catalan language by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. He was also arrested by the Civil Guard, resulting in a short stay in prison, from which he was freed after paying 50 pesetas bail.

his DEATH

On 7 June 1926, Gaudí was walking towards the Sant Felip Neri church, where he went daily to pray and confess with Mosén Agustí Mas i Folch. While walking along the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, between the streets of Girona and Bailén, he was knocked down by a tram and passed out. Assumed to be a beggar because of his lack of identity documents and neglected appearance, with his worn-out old clothes, it was a while until anybody came to his aid. Finally, a policeman stopped a taxi and took him to the Santa Creu Hospital.

The next day, the chaplain of the Sagrada Família, Mosén Gil Parés, recognized him. But it was too late and nothing could be done for him. Gaudí died on 10 June 1926, at the age of 73, at the height of his career. He was buried on 12 June. A big crowd was present to bid their farewell to him in the chapel of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the crypt of the Sagrada Família. His gravestone bears the following inscription:

Antonius Gaudí Cornet. Reusensis. Annos natus LXXIV, vitae exemplaris vir, eximiusque artifex, mirabilis operis hujus, templi auctor, pie obiit Barcinone dit X Junii MCMXXVI, hinc cineres tanti hominis, resurrectionem mortuorum expectant. R.I.P.

Subsequent reputation

After his death, Gaudí suffered a period of neglect and his works were unpopular amongst international critics, who regarded them as baroque and excessively imaginative. In his homeland he was equally disdained by Noucentisme, the new movement which took the place of Modernisme. In 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, Gaudí's workshop in the Sagrada Família was ransacked and a great number of his documents, plans and scale models were destroyed. Gaudí’s reputation was beginning to recover by the 1950s, when his work was defended mainly by Salvador Dalí but also by the architect Josep Lluís Sert. In 1956 a retrospective on Gaudí was organised at the Saló del Tinell in Barcelona, and in 1957 his first international exhibition was held, at the MOMA in New York. Between 1950 and 1960, the studies of international critics like George Collins, Nikolaus Pevsner and Roberto Pane disseminated Gaudí’s work widely, while in his homeland it was admired by Alexandre Cirici, Juan Eduardo Cirlot and Oriol Bohigas. It is also worth mentioning the high reputation of Gaudí’s work in Japan, where his work is very much admired, the studies by Kenji Imai and Tokutoshi Torii being particularly notable. Ever since, the appreciation of Gaudí’s work has grown, culminating in 1984 when various works were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites.


In 1952, the centenary year of the architect’s birth, the Asociación de Amigos de Gaudí (Friends of Gaudí Association) was founded with the aim of disseminating and conserving the legacy of the Catalan artist. In 1956 the Gaudí Chair at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia was created with the purpose of deepening the study of the Gaudi’s works and participating in their conservation. In 1987, King Juan Carlos I awarded it the title Real Cátedra Gaudí. In 1976, on the 50th anniversary of his death, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organised an exhibition about Gaudí that went around the world.


Profoundly religious as he was and a man of ascetic habits, Gaudí’s beatification has been proposed, and the process was initiated in 1998 by the archbishop of Barcelona, Ricard Maria Carles, a move which was authorised by the Vatican in 2000. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Gaudí’s birth, a number of official ceremonies, concerts, shows and conferences were held, and several books were published. On 24 September of the same year, the musical Gaudí had its premiere in the Palau dels Esports de Barcelona. The authors of the piece were Jordi Galceran, Esteve Miralles and Albert Guinovart. In 2008 in his honour the Gaudí Awards were launched, organised by the Catalan Film Academy to honour the best Catalan films of the year.

Style

Gaudí and Modernisme

The course of Gaudí's professional life was unique in that he never ceased to investigate mechanical structures of buildings. Early on, Gaudí was inspired by oriental arts (India, Persia, Japan) through the study of the historicist architectural theoreticians, such as Walter Pater, John Ruskin and William Morris. The influence of the Oriental movement can be seen in works like the Capricho, the Güell Palace, the Güell Pavilions and the Casa Vicens. Later on, he adhered to the neo-Gothic movement that was in fashion at the time, following the ideas of the French architect Viollet-le-Duc. This influence is reflected in the Colegi de les Teresianes, the bishop's palace in Astorga, the Casa Botines and the Bellesguard house as well as in the crypt and the apse of the Sagrada Família. Eventually, Gaudí embarked on a more personal phase, with the individualistic, organic style inspired by nature in which he would build his major works.

During his time as a student, Gaudí was able to study a collection of photographs of Egyptian, Indian, Persian, Mayan, Chinese and Japanese art owned by the School of Architecture. The collection also included Moorish monuments in Spain, which left a deep mark on him and served as an inspiration in many of his works. He also studied the book Plans, elevations, sections and details of the Alhambra by Owen Jones, which he borrowed from the School’s library. He took various structural and ornamental solutions from nazarí and mudéjar art, which he used with variations and stylistic freedom in his works. A noteworthy observation that Gaudí made of Islamic art is the spatial uncertainty, the concept of structures with limitless space; taking on a feeling of sequence, fragmented, with holes and partitions, which create a divide without ruining the feeling of open space by closing it in with barriers.

Without doubt the style that most influenced him was the Gothic Revival, which was promoted in the latter half of the 19th century by the theoretical works of Viollet-le-Duc. The French architect called for studying the styles of the past and adapting them in a rational manner, taking into account both the structure and design. Nonetheless, for Gaudí the Gothic style was "imperfect", because despite the effectiveness of some of its structural solutions it was an art that had yet to be "perfected”. In his own words:

'Gothic art is imperfect, only half resolved; it is a style created by the compasses, a formulaic industrial repetition. Its stability depends on constant propping up by the buttresses: it is a defective body held up on crutches. (...) The proof that Gothic works are of deficient plasticity is that they produce their greatest emotional effect when they are mutilated, covered in ivy and lit by the moon'.

After these initial influences, Gaudí moved towards Modernisme, which was then in its heyday. Modernisme in its earlier stages was inspired by historic architecture, as for its practitioners the return to the past was a response to the industrial forms imposed by the new technological advances that the Industrial Revolution produced. The use of these styles from the past represented a moral regeneration that allowed the bourgeoisie to identify with values they regarded as their cultural roots. The Renaixença (rebirth), the revival of Catalan culture that began in the second half of the 19th century, brought more Gothic forms into the Catalan “national” style that aimed to combine nationalism and cosmopolitanism while at the same time integrating into the European modernizing movement.

Some essential features of Modernisme were: an anticlassical language inherited from Romanticism with a tendency to a certain lyricism and subjectivity; the determined connection of architecture with the applied arts and artistic work that produced a remarkably ornamental style; the use of new materials from which emerged a mixed constructional language, rich in contrasts, that sought a plastic effect for the whole; a strong sense of optimism and faith in progress that produced an impassioned and emphatic art that reflected the atmosphere of prosperity of the time, above all of the bourgeoisie.

The quest for a new ARCHITECTURAL LANGUANGE

Gaudí is usually considered the great master of Catalan Modernism, but his works go beyond any style or classification. They are imaginative works that find their main inspiration in nature. Gaudí studied organic and anarchic geometric forms of nature thoroughly, searching for a language to give expression to these forms in architecture. Some of his greatest inspirations came from the mountain of Montserrat, the caves of Mallorca, the saltpetre caves in Collbató), the crag of Fra Guerau in the Prades Mountains behind Reus, the Pareis mountain in the north of Mallorca and Sant Miquel del Fai in Bigues i Riells, all of them places that Gaudí had visited.

This study of nature translated into his use of ruled geometrical forms such as the hyperbolic paraboloid, the hyperboloid, the helicoid and the cone, which reflect the forms Gaudí would find in nature. Ruled surfaces are forms generated by a straight line known as the generatrix, as it moves over one or several lines known as directrices. Gaudí found abundant examples of them in nature, for instance in rushes, reeds and bones; he used to say that there is no better structure than the trunk of a tree or a human skeleton. These forms are at the same time functional and aesthetic, and Gaudí would use them wisely, knowing how to adapt the language of nature to the structural forms of architecture. He used to assimilate the helicoid form to movement and the hyperboloid to light. Concerning ruled surfaces, he would say the following:

'Paraboloids, hyperboloids and helicoids, constantly varying the incidence of the light, are rich in matrices themselves, which make ornamentation and even modelling unnecessary'.

Another element widely used by Gaudí was the catenary curve. He had studied geometry thoroughly when he was young, studying numerous articles about engineering, a field that praised the virtues of the catenary curve as a mechanical element, one which at that time, however, was used only in the construction suspension bridges. Gaudí was the first one to use this element in common architecture. The use of these catenary arches in works like the Casa Milà, the School of the Teresianas, the crypt of the Colònia Güell and the Sagrada Família allowed Gaudí to add an element of great strength to his structures, given that the catenary distributes the weight it regularly carries evenly, being affected only by tangential forces that cancel each other out.

With the use of these elements, Gaudí went from plane to spatial geometry, to ruled geometry. These constructional forms are highly suited to the use of cheap materials such as brick. Gaudí frequently used brick laid with mortar in successive layers, as in the traditional Catalan vault. This quest for new structural solutions culminated between 1910 and 1920, when he put all his research and experience into his masterpiece, the Sagrada Família. Gaudí conceived this church as if it were the structure of a forest, with a set of tree-like columns divided into various branches to support a structure of intertwined hyperboloid vaults. He inclined the columns so they could put up better with the perpendicular pressures on their section. He also gave them a double turn helicoid shape (right turn and left turn), as in the branches and trunks of trees. This created a structure that is nowadays known as fractal. Together with a modulation of the space that divides it into small, independent and self-supporting modules, it creates a structure that perfectly supports the mechanical traction forces without need for buttresses, as required by the neo-Gothic style. 

Gaudí thus achieved a rational, structured and perfectly logical solution adapted to nature, creating at the same time a new architectural style that was original, simple, practical and aesthetic. This new constructional technique allowed Gaudí to achieve his greatest architectural goal; to perfect and go beyond Gothic style. The hyperboloid vaults have their centre where the Gothic had their keystone, and the hyperboloid allows for a hole in this space to let natural light in. In the intersection between the vaults, where Gothic vaults have their ribs, the hyperboloid allows for holes as well, which Gaudí made use of to give the impression of a starry sky. 

Gaudí complemented this organic vision of architecture with a unique spatial vision that allowed him to conceive his designs tridimensionally, unlike the dimensionally flat design of traditional architecture. He used to say that he had acquired this spatial sense as a boy by looking at the drawings his father made of the boilers and stills he produced. Because of this spatial conception, Gaudí always preferred to work with casts and scale models or even improvise on site as the works progressed. Reluctant to draw plans, only on rare occasions did he sketch his works, in fact only when required by official authorities.

One of Gaudí’s many innovations in the technical realm was the use of a scale model to calculate structures: for the church of the Colònia Güell, he built a big scale model (1:10) with a height of four meters in a shed next to the building. There, he set up a model that had strings with little bags full of bullets hanging from them. On a drawing board that was attached to the ceiling he drew the floor of the church, and he hung the strings (for the catenaries) with the bullets (for the weight) from the supporting points of the building—columns, intersection of walls. These weights produced a catenary curve both in the arches and vaults. At that point, he took a picture that—inverted—showed the structure for columns and arches that Gaudí had been looking for. Gaudí would then paint over these photographs with gouache or pastel. The outline of the church defined, he recorded every single detail of the building; architectural, stylistic and decorative. 

Gaudís position in the history of architecture is that of a great creative genius who—inspired by nature—developed a style of his own that attained great technical perfection as well as a cultivated aesthetic value, and bore the mark of his strong character. Gaudí’s structural innovations were to a certain extent the result of his having passed through various styles, from Doric to Baroque via Gothic, his main source of inspiration. It could be said that these styles culminated in the work of Gaudí, who reinterpreted and perfected them. Gaudí passed through the historicism and eclecticism of his generation without connecting with other architectural movements of the 20th century that, with their rationalist postulates, derived from the Bauhaus School, and represented an antithetical evolution to that initiated by Gaudí, given that it later on marked the disdain and the initial lack of comprehension of the work of the modernista architect. 

Other factors that led to the initial neglect of the Catalan architect's work was that despite having numerous assistants and helpers, Gaudí did not create a school of his own and never taught, nor did he leave behind many any written documents. Some of his subordinates followed his footsteps closely, above all Francesc Berenguer and Josep Maria Jujol; others, like Cèsar Martinell, Francesc Folguera and Josep Francesc Ràfols graduated towards Noucentisme, leaving the master’s trail. Despite this, a degree of Gaudí's influence can be discerned in some architects that either formed part of the Modernista movement or departed from it and who had had no direct contact with Gaudí, such as Josep Maria Pericas (Casa Alòs, Ripoll), Bernardí Martorell (Olius cemetery) and Lluís Muncunill (Masía Freixa, Terrassa). Nonetheless, Gaudí left a deep mark on 20th century architecture: masters like Le Corbusier have declared themselves admirers of his work, and the works of other architects like Pier Luigi Nervi, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Oscar Niemeyer, Félix Candela, Eduardo Torroja and Santiago Calatrava were inspired by the new style Gaudí had invented. Frei Otto used Gaudi’s forms in the construction of the Munich Olympic Stadium. 

In Japan, the work of Kenji Imai bears evidence of Gaudi’s influence, as can be seen in the Memorial for the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan in Nagasaki (Japanese National Architecture Award in 1962), where the use of Gaudí's famous “trencadís" stands out. Art critics in research and teaching positions since 1950 have given the artist a well-deserved position of relevance within 20th-century architecture.

  

Design and craftsmanship

During his student days, Gaudí used to attend various craft workshops, such as those taught by Eudald Puntí, Llorenç Matamala and Joan Oñós, where he learnt the basic aspects of all techniques relating to architecture, including sculpture, carpentry, wrought ironwork, stained glass, ceramics, plaster modelling, etc. He also took on new technological developments, integrating into his technique the use of iron and reinforced concrete in construction. All this is due to the global vision Gaudí had of architecture as a multifunctional design, in which every single detail in an arrangement has to be harmoniously made and well proportioned. This knowledge not only allowed him to design architectural projects but also to design all the elements of the works he created, from furnishings to illumination to wrought ironwork. Gaudí was also an innovator in the realm of craftsmanship, conceiving new technical and decorative solutions with the materials he used, as for example his way of designing ceramic mosaics made of waste pieces (“trencadís”) in original and imaginative combinations. For the restoration of Mallorca Cathedral he invented a new technique to produce stained glass, which consisted of juxtaposing three glass panes of primary colours, and sometimes a neutral one, varying the thickness of the glass in order to graduate the intensity of the light. 

 

This was how he personally designed many of the Sagrada Família’s sculptures, applying a curious method he himself had conceived. To start with, he would thoroughly study the anatomy of the figure, concentrating on gestures. For this purpose, he attentively studied the human skeleton and sometimes used dummies made of wire to test the appropriate posture of the figure he was about to sculp. In a second step, he would take photographs of the models, using a mirror system that provided multiple perspectives. He would then make plaster casts of the figures, both of people and animals (on one occasion he made a donkey stand up so it would not move). He would modify the proportions of these casts to obtain the desired appearance of the figure, depending on its place in the church (the higher up, the bigger it would be). Eventually, he would sculpt the figures in stone.

Apart from architecture, Gaudí also designed urban settings and landscaping, always aiming to place his works in the most appropriate surroundings, both natural and architectural. He studied the location of his constructions thoroughly, trying to integrate them into their surroundings naturally. For this purpose, he often used the material that was most common in these surroundings, such as the slate of Bellesguard and the grey granit of Bierzo in the Bishop’s Palace of Astorga. Many of his projects included gardens, like the Casa Vicens or the Güell Pavilions, or were even gardens themselves, like the Güell Park or the Can Artigas Gardens. A perfect example of this integration into nature was the First Mystery of the Glory of the Rosary at Montserrat,, where the architectural framework is nature itself—here the Montserrat rock—that encircles the group of sculptures that adorned the path to the Holy Cave.

Equally, Gaudí stood out as interior decorator, taking care of the decoration of most of his buildings personally, from the design of the furnishings to the smallest details. In each case he knew how to apply stylistic particularities, personalising the decoration according to the owner’s taste, the predominant style of the arrangement or its place in the surroundings—whether urban or natural—and depending on its type, secular or religious.

Many of his works were related to liturgical furnishing. From the design of a desk for his office at the beginning of his career to the furnishings designed for the Sobrellano Palace of Comillas, he designed all furnishing of the Vicens, Calvet, Battló and Milà houses, of the Güell Palace and the Bellesguard Tower, and finally also the liturgical furnishing of the Sagrada Família. It is noteworthy that Gaudí studied some ergonomy in order to adapt his furnishings to the human anatomy in an optimal way. Many of the furnishings he designed are currently exhibited at the Gaudí Museum in the Güell Park.

Another aspect to mention is the intelligent distribution of space, always with the aim of creating a comfortable, intimate atmosphere in the interior of all his buildings. For this purpose, Gaudí would divide the space into different sections, adapted to their specific use, by means of low walls, dropped ceilings, sliding doors and wall closets. Apart from taking care of every single detail of all structural and ornamental elements, he would make sure his constructions had good lighting and ventilation. For this purpose, he would study the orientation of the building in detail with respect to the cardinal points, as well as the climate of the region and its place in the surrounding natural setting. At that time, there was an increasing demand for more domestic comfort, with piped water and gas and the use of electric light, all of which Gaudí expertly incorporated into his constructions. For the Sagrada Família, for example, he carried out thorough studies on acoustics and illumination, in order to optimise them. He used to say the following with regard to light: ”Light achieves maximum harmony at an inclination of 45°, since it resides on objects in a way that is neither horizontal nor vertical. This can be considered medium light, and it offers the most perfect vision of objects and their most exquisite nuances. It is the Mediterranean light.”

Lighting also served Gaudí for the organisation of space, which required a careful study of the gradient of light intensity to adequately adapt to each specific environment. He achieved this with different elements such as skylights, windows, shutters and blinds; a notable case is the gradation of colour used in the atrium of the Casa Batlló to achieve uniform distribution of light throughout the interior. He also tended to build south-facing houses to maximise sunlight.