Gaudí. Victoria Charles

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      “Ornamentation plays an essential part, in that it gives character, but nevertheless it is no more than meter and rhyme in poetry. A concept can be expressed in many ways, but it becomes obscure and pedantic when one wishes to introduce – those pedantic accessories which undermine the clear meaning of thought.”

Antoni Gaudí (Diary extract c. 1876–1879)

      © Parkstone Press International, New York (USA)

      © Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA

      F. Devos photographs

      Casa Milà, La Pedrera (Barcelona): Thanks to Fundació

      Caixa Catalunya

      Biography

      Casa Vicens, View of façade from Calle de Carolines

      1852: Gaudí is born on 25 July, in the town of Reus.

      1863: Gaudí starts his school education at the Convent of St Francis, Reus.

      1868: Gaudí moves to Barcelona to complete his final year of secondary education at the Instituto Jaume Baulmes.

      1869: Gaudí enrols in the Faculty of Science at the University of Barcelona.

      1873: Gaudí enrols in the School of Architecture.

      1875: Gaudí is called up for military service.

      1876: The death of his elder brother Francesc and his mother Antonia.

      1878: Gaudí qualifies as an architect.

      1879: Gaudí joins the excursionistas. His sister Rosa dies.

      1883: Gaudí starts work on the Sagrada Familia, the following year he is officially named architect of the project. Begins work on Casa Vicens and designs El Capricho.

      1884: Gaudí begins building Las Corts de Sarría, on Güell estate.

      1886: Work begins on the Güell Palace.

      1888: Universal exhibition in Barcelona, including exhibit designed by Gaudí. Gaudí begins constructing the Colegio Teresiano. He begins work on the Episcopal Palace in Astorga and the Casa Botines in León; projects which continue until 1891.

      1891: Gaudí travels to Tangiers and prepares designs for a Franciscan Mission.

      1894: Gaudí subjects himself to strict Lenten fast and is bedridden.

      1895: Gaudí collaborates on the Bodegas Güell with Francesc Berenguer.

      1898: Gaudí begins the Casa Calvet. He develops model for the Crypt at the Colonía Güell.

      1899: Gaudí receives award for municipal council for Casa Calvet.

      1900: Work begins on the Park Güell

      1903: Restoration of Mallora Cathedral begins.

      1905: Gaudí, his father and niece move to a house in the Park Güell.

      1906: Gaudí’s father, Francesc, dies.

      1910: Gaudí’s first exhibition abroad, at the Grand Palais in Paris.

      1911: Gaudí contracts brucellosis.

      1912: Gaudí’s niece, Rosa Egea i Gaudí, dies.

      1925: The first of the Apostle Towers for the Sagrada Familia is completed.

      1926: Gaudí is knocked down by a tram on the 7 June and dies three days later on 10 June.

      The life of Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) is best told and analysed through a focused study of his works. The buildings, plans and designs testify to Gaudí’s character, interests and remarkable creativity in a way that research into his childhood, his daily routines and working habits can illuminate only dimly. In addition to this, Gaudí was not an academic thinker keen to preserve his thoughts and ideas for posterity through either teaching or writing. He worked in the sphere of practical, rather than theoretical work.

      Episcopal Palace of Astorga

      General view

      Were this not enough to challenge attempts to gauge the mind of this innovative architect the violence of Spain’s Civil War resulted in the destruction of a large part of the Gaudí archive, and this has denied a deeper understanding of Gaudí the man, his character and thoughts. On 29th July in the first year of the Spanish Civil war the Sagrada Familia was broken into, and documents, designs and architectural models stored in the crypt were destroyed. The absence of documentation limits the possibility of a searching biographical study, and it has encouraged rather more speculative interpretations of the architect. Today Gaudí has gained an almost mythic status in the same way that his buildings have become iconic.

      Episcopal Palace of Astorga

      Entrance porch detail

      While his work continues to attract the ‘devotions’ of many thousands of tourists, his life inspires a range of responses. Besides the academic scholarship of Joan Bassegoda i Nonnell, for example, or the recent biographical study of Gijs Van Hensenberg, the life of Gaudí has prompted hagiographies and more imaginative reflections. In a different vein Barcelona’s acclaimed opera house, el Liceu, premiered the opera Antoni Gaudí by Joan Guinjoan in 2004 and this process of cultural celebration has taken on a metaphysical dimension with the campaign by the Associació Pro Beataifició d’Antoni Gaudí to canonise him.

      Episcopal Palace of Astorga

      View of entrance

      The ongoing celebrations and constructions of Gaudí the man by various groups signals how in our ‘Post-Modern’ age the ascetic, inspired, untiring creator remains a key trope of creativity in the popular imagination. Gaudí remains an enigmatic figure and attempts to interpret him tend to tell us more about the interpreter, as is illustrated in the following quotations. Salvador Dalí records an exchange with the architect Le Corbusier in his essay As of the terrifying and edible beauty of modern-style architecture. Dalí stated, “…that the last great genius of architecture was called Gaudí whose name in Catalan means ‘enjoy’.”

      Episcopal Palace of Astorga

      Chimney

      He comments that Le Corbusier’s face signalled his disagreement but Dalí continued, arguing that “the enjoyment and desire [which] are characteristic of Catholicism and of the Mediterranean Gothic” were “reinvented and brought to their paroxysm by Gaudí”. The notion of Gaudí and his architecture with which the Surrealist confronted the rational Modernist architect illustrates a recurring feature in the historiography of Gaudí, which is the concern to isolate Gaudí from the specific history of architecture and render him as a visionary genius.

      Episcopal Palace of Astorga

      General view of façade

      Furthermore, Dalí’s account aims to place Gaudí in a pre-history of Surrealism and identify Gaudí as a ‘prophet’ or precursor of the aesthetics and ideas of that avant-garde Modernist movement. While the devout Catholic and studious architect Gaudí may have considered anathema much of Dalí’s art and writing, he may not have disagreed entirely with Dalí’s comments cited here. However, it should be noted that to identify Gaudí as a proto-Surrealist risks obscuring Gaudí’s intellectual position, as well as his traditional religious beliefs. Considered from an historiographical angle Dalí’s statement suggests an insight into Gaudí’s continued appeal into the early twenty-first century.