Gaudi [English]

ANTONI GAUDÍ (1852-1926) The architect and designer Antoni Gaudí is the most internationally english prestigious figure in Catalan architecture. This stature is due to his capacity for GAUDI synthesising tradition and for the originality and audacity of his technical solutions as well as his use of brilliant, unique and creative ornamentation. Born in Reus, he graduated in Barcelona in 1878 and this city became the centre of his activities at a most favourable moment for the development of his personality. A cultural and political renaissance (the Renaixença) was in full swing. It was a time of economic prosperity and urban expansion with the patronage of a middle class which wanted to be in tune with the new European styles. Gaudí’s education and development was influenced by the theories of Viollet-le-Duc and Ruskin as well as the thought of the «Modernist» generation [the Catalan movement corresponding to Art Nouveau] which was formed around the 1888 Barcelona World Fair. Soon however, the architect would go beyond dominant historicist styles within 19th century eclecticism to formulate his own aesthetic which would make his style quite unmistakable and, at the same time, difficult to classify. A distinctive feature of Gaudí’s biography was his relationship with the Güells, a family of industrialists who commissioned him with a good number of works and helped him to gain prestige among Barcelona circles. Equally important were his links from when he was just a young man with the Sagrada Família church which would play a role in intensifying his deep religiosity and finally his exclusive and increasingly absorbing dedication to the problems which arose in putting his own architecture into practice. Apart from the works already mentioned he built the Theresian Convent and the Villa Bellesguard in Barcelona, buildings in Comillas, Astorga and León, revised the interior of Majorca Cathedral and carried out other minor works. One important aspect is his capacity as an interior designer. This led him to design, in close collaboration with some of the very fine artisans of his time, all those elements making up architectural space within an organic concept of decoration and with the integration of these elements into the construction process. In his own time Gaudí was both admired and criticised for the audacity and singularity of his innovative solutions. Now, after a period of being relatively ignored, his fame on a world scale has become an unquestioned fact, both in specialised circles and among the general public. LA SAGRADA FAMÍLIA Monumental church dedicated to the Holy Family, Gaudí’s most famous work, the finest example of his visionary genius and a worldwide symbol of Barcelona. The architect undertook the task in 1883 on the site of a previous neo-Gothic project begun in 1882 by F. del Villar. He dedicated his life, in his later years, to the exclusion of everything else, to carrying out this ambitious undertaking which he left unfinished. Gaudí wanted to create a «20th century cathedral», a synthesis of all his architectural knowledge with a complex system of symbolisms and a visual explication of the mysteries of faith. There would be façades representing the birth, death and resurrection of Christ with eighteen towers symbolising the twelve Apostles, the four Evangelists, the Virgin Mary and Christ. This last, the tallest, would stand 170 metres high. The church was based on the plan of a Gothic basilica with five naves, a transept, an apse and ambulatory. Gaudí planned monumental façades on the central nave and the arms of the transept. He wanted to give the edifice a spectacular vertical dimension by way of a profusion of pinnacles and high, spiral-shaped towers which would be covered in abstract patterns of Venetian glass mosaic. Works personally undertaken by Gaudí are the neo-Gothic crypt, the constructed part of the apse and the magnificent façade of the Nativity (eastern side) with a purely naturalistic exuberance in its decoration (figures directly moulded from nature, animals, plants, clouds, etc.). Of the four towers of this façade, Gaudí only saw that of St. Barnabas completed. Work was interrupted in 1936 when the crypt and Gaudí’s study were burnt. The project was resumed in 1952 using existing drawings and scale models as a base although continuation of the work gave rise to much controversy. From 1954 to 1976, the façade and the four towers of the Passion (western side) were completed. The sculptor Josep M. Subirachs joined the project team (sculptures on the Portal of the Passion) in 1987. The constructed part is open to visitors as well as the small Museu del Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família. PIaça de la Sagrada Família • 08013 Barcelona Phone: (+34) 932 080 414 www.sagradafamilia.cat Metro stations: Sagrada Família (L5) (L2) Buses: 10, 19, 33, 34, 43, 44, 50, 51 Centre del Modernisme Phone: (+34) 933 177 652 - 902 076 621 www.rutadelmodernisme.com Urban park standing on an elevation (the Muntanya Pelada) to the north of the Barcelona district of Gràcia. Gaudí PARK GÜELL planned and directed the construction of the park from 1900 to 1914 for Eusebi Güell as infrastructure and facilities for a residential garden-city based on English models. It was intended for sixty detached houses. The project was unsuccessful and the park became city property in 1922. Two pavilions at the main entrance complete the wall surrounding the park. Intended as a porter’s lodge and administrative building, these pavilions are of stone with roofs of Catalan vaults of flat-laid brick finished with pieces of broken ceramic called trencadís. The ceramic trencadís follows the sinuous geometric surfaces, a device which gives all of the park’s ornamentation a unique beauty. Each of the roofs is crowned by a small dome above which stands a tall spiral-shaped tower with Gaudí’s characteristic four-branched cross. A grand stairway divided by a mythological dragon or lizard (which also serves as overflow for the cistern) leads to the large hypostyle hall destined as the housing development’s marketplace. This is built with 84 columns of Doric inspiration supporting quarter-sphere domes. These, in turn, support the great upper plaza, a fine balcony overlooking the city and the sea. The large plaza is delimited by an extraordinary balustrade bench which twists in serpentine manner to form winding courses, recesses and small semi-enclosed areas where the facing of brightly coloured trencadís creates a spectacular collage which seems to have anticipated a vein explored by later avant-garde artists. For the creation of this winding bench and the very beautiful keystones of the hypostyle, marketplace, Gaudí had the collaboration of the architect Josep M. Jujol. Another feature is the large cistern for collecting rainwater from the plaza by way of the columns. The cistern lies beneath the hypostyle, a place of great plastic beauty. Also noteworthy are the viaducts which support the roads for vehicular traffic with retaining walls and robust inclined pillars which form elegant arches faced with rough-hewn stone. In the house which Gaudí had built for his own use in the park, the work of his disciple Francesc Berenguer (1905), we now find the Casa-Museu Gaudí. This museum has notable examples of furnishings designed by the architect as well as personal memorabilia. World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Olot, s/n • 08024 Barcelona Casa-Museu Gaudí • Phone (+34) 932 193 811 Metro station: Lesseps (L3) Buses: 24, 28, 31, 32, 92, 116 COLÒNIA GÜELL Crypt of the church planned by Gaudí for the textile workers’ estate which Eusebi Güell installed in the municipality of Santa Coloma de Cervelló, near the Llobregat river. (The co-operative and some of the houses are the work of Gaudí’s disciples: F. Berenguer and J. Rubió i Bellver). Gaudí began this ambitious project in 1898 but only the crypt was finished (1908-1916). Nevertheless, this is one of the architect’s most studied and admired works and a precedent for many of the solutions used in the church of the Sagrada Família. Situated on a pine-covered hill, the ground plan is inscribed in the shape of an irregular oval with the central body divided by two bays which, by means of four central columns and other lateral columns, support a series of irregular exposed brick ribs. Surrounding this is an ambulatory with other columns supporting the ribs of the roof. In front of the entrance is a porch which is right beside the stairway leading to the upper level where the church was to be built. The great expressive strength of the crypt is the result of a series of innovative features in the structure along with the audacious use of constructive elements. The pillars are inclined in accordance with the loads they have to bear while the traditional Catalan brick vault adopts the form known as hyperbolic paraboloid («saddle-shaped»), years ahead of its use in modern avant-garde architecture. The materials —basically basaltic stone, very rough-hewn, and brick, with mosaics and stained glass in doors and windows— are used with great vigour and energy which conveys a sense of the rough and primitive. The wood and iron benches, designed by Gaudí himself, are also very worthy of study. Claudi Güell, 9-11 08690 Santa Coloma de Cervelló, Barcelona Phone information of the Colònia Güell: (+34) 936 305 807 www.elbaixllobregat.net/coloniaguell From Barcelona: Motorway AP-2, Cinturó Litoral exit (by way of Sant Boi de Llobregat and the highway to Sant Vicenç dels Horts), or A-2, Sant Vicenç dels Horts exit Railway: FGC, Colònia Güell station We would like to thank Mr Joan Bassegoda i Nonell, of the Gaudí chair of the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and the ill-fated Mr Ignasi de Solà-Morales, lecturer at the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, for their kind collaboration.

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