It is said that great art should provoke fierce responses, both positive and negative. By this criteria, few architects would have a stronger claim to greatness than Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926), the idiosyncratic Catalan master known widely as “God’s architect.”
His best-known work, the still-incomplete cathedral La Sagrada Familia, was described by the modernist architect Louis Sullivan as “spirit symbolized in stone … the greatest piece of creative architecture of the past 25 years.” This same building was described by George Orwell as “one of the most hideous buildings in the world.” Orwell added that “the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up when they had the chance.”
La Sagrada Familia is unlike any other cathedral. While it is widely recognized today as one of the great masterpieces of world architecture, the building has also earned its share of detractors through the years. Via Co.Design
My feelings toward Gaudí’s masterpiece are much closer to Sullivan than Orwell. However, it is to the Catalan’s credit that, throughout the years, so many people have felt strongly enough about his work to object to it. Truly original artists depart from convention and are thus never universally embraced. Gaudí’s work is, above all else, fiercely original; it demands not only attention, but a response. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine someone visiting Barcelona without forming an opinion of La Sagrada Familia, whether or not they typically notice architecture.
June 25 marks the 164th anniversary of Gaudí’s birth. We felt it was only appropriate to celebrate this occasion by taking a closer look at five of the master’s most memorable buildings. Each of these structures is absolutely unique and sheds light on a different dimension of Gaudí’s legendary career.
Via Expedia
Detail image via Turisme de Barcelona
5. Casa Vicens
The first private residence designed by Gaudí, Casa Vicens was completed in 1888, when the architect was still in his 30s. Located in the Gràcia district in Barcelona, Casa Vicens is considered an example of Neo-Mudéjar, the Moorish Revival trend that swept through Spain at the end of the 19th century. Gaudí being Gaudí however, the work is hardly nostalgic.
Moorish design elements are transformed in the overall composition of Casa Vicens, which also contains neoclassical and Art Nouveau elements. Prefiguring a trend that would become more prominent as his career continued, Gaudí incorporated numerous craft elements into the building, including colorful tiles, intricately wrought iron and colored glass. Gaudí’s building succeeds in celebrating the legacy of Middle Eastern design on the Iberian peninsula without being held hostage to a single style.
Via GloboTreks
The interior of La Pedrera is as bold and imaginative as the exterior; via Wikipedia
4. La Pedrera
The original name of La Pedrera is actually Casa Milà, or house of Milà, after the residential building’s patron, Pere Milà i Camps. The nickname, which means “the Quarry” in Catalan, came about due to the façade, which is composed of massive slabs of contoured limestone. When this building was first unveiled in 1912 its dramatic Art Nouveau stylings were too much for some critics to take. The building’s design is bold even by today’s standards. Its magnificence is enhanced by the intricate wrought-iron windows and balconies designed by Josep Maria Jujol. Along with Gaudí, Jujol was a leader in the Catalan design movement known as Modernisme.
A devout Catholic who saw the main purpose of his work to be the glorification of God, Gaudí often incorporated religious elements into his secular buildings, and La Pedrera is no exception. The cornice of the building includes an excerpt from the rosary prayer, and the original scheme included statuary of the Virgin Mary and the archangels Gabriel and Michael. When the patrons of the project resisted the religious statuary, Gaudí considered abandoning the project altogether. Thankfully, one of Gaudí’s friends, a priest, persuaded him to stick with the project.
Via Wikipedia
Via Rough Guides
3. Park Güell
Park Güell was conceived in collaboration with Count Eusebi Güell, one of Gaudí’s great patrons. A public park system composed of gardens and pavilions, Park Güell was completed in 1914 and remains one of Barcelona’s most frequented attractions.
The structures at Park Güell are reflective of Gaudí’s naturalist period, which was characterized by the architect’s desire to reflect natural forms and contours in architecture. It is fitting, then, that the park today is a wildlife preserve, home to rare birds such as the short-toed eagle and various species of parrots. While the scheme is laden with complex Catholic imagery, the brightly colored glass and curved lines give the place a light touch and help to make it one of Gaudí’s most accessible works.
Via Blogspot
2. Colonia Güell
Like La Sagrada Familia, Colonia Güell is an unfinished masterpiece. Indeed, the two works have a lot in common: Many of the techniques Gaudí would use in his great cathedral were pioneered here, including catenary arches. However, everything here is on a much smaller, more human scale. The building was intended to serve as the chapel and crypt for a small industrial community on the outskirts of Barcelona. Visitors to this site today are often struck by the broken tile mosaics and the idiosyncratic, irregular arrangement of the vaults and columns.
Via Daily Mail
Via Letter From Lund
1. La Sagrada Familia
Countless books have been written about La Sagrada Familia, the world’s best-known Cathedral of the modernist period. Gaudí took over the project in 1883, transforming the original plans into something truly without precedent. A student of Gothic architecture, Gaudí was no nostalgist. Unlike his neo-Gothic contemporaries, who sought to recapture the magic of an antiquated style, Gaudí wanted to preserve only what worked in Gothic architecture — the sublimity of its vaulted ceilings — while moving beyond what he saw as the style’s limitations.
“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,” Gaudí wrote in his notebook. “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.”
Via Daily Mail
Gaudí’s solution to this problem was to create a new style of vaulting that did not rely on the support of external buttresses. From an engineering standpoint alone, this was remarkable. But the building is also magnificent from a pure design standpoint. In this, his greatest building, Gaudí used modern lines and contours to achieve an effect that rivals the great medieval cathedrals in grandeur. Both religious and nonreligious visitors to La Sagrada Familia have been moved by the unity of the complex scheme.
Unfortunately, Gaudí did not live to see his masterpiece completed. When he died in 1926 after being struck down by a tram, only a quarter of the building was complete. Construction continues even today, as the Spanish Civil War and other events caused delays in construction throughout the 20th century. The building is slated for completion in 2026, the centenary of Gaudí’s death.
Cover image: ceiling of La Sagrada Familia via Wikipedia
