Antoni Gaudi I Cornet was one of the leading lights of Barcelona’s art nouveau or modernism movement. His religious and private commissions married gothic and arabesque styles with forms from nature to create a unique style of organic architecture
Early Life of Gaudi
Born at Reus in 25th June 1852, to Francesco Gaudi I Serra, a boiler maker and his wife Antonia Cornet I Bertran, Gaudi was the youngest of five children. All but one of his siblings died in childhood. Gaudi himself was a sickly child and as a result did not play much with other children. Instead, he took to walking and observing the countryside about Reus. It was during this period that his fascination with the ‘design’ of nature began.
In 1873 Gaudi began his architectural studies at the Escola Provincial d’Arquitectura in Barcelona. To pay his way through university and to gain experience, he worked in the offices of various architects as a student. Although he did not shine at university, he was recognised for his skills as a draughtsman and his creative flair.
Gaudi’s Influences
As a student, Gaudi became involved in the modernism movement through the café society of Barcelona. Heavily influenced by Catalan nationalism, which Gaudi embraced and anticlericalism which he did not, he began to marry the ideals of art nouveau with his attraction to gothic architecture and Arabic art and his fascination with the forms of nature. Gaudi’s fascination with the shapes, colours and structure of plants, rocks and crystals became woven not only into the aesthetics of his architecture but also into its construction. His method of working with nature became known as ‘organic construction’ and resulted in many of his buildings looking like they had ‘grown’ out of natural formations.
Gaudi the Architect
Gaudi qualified as an architect in 1878. His first jobs included a commission to building a factory and attached workers residence and the design of a street lamp for Placa Reial for Barcelona’s city council. It was also the year that he met his chief patron, Eusebui Guell I Bacigalupi. Guell, a wealthy industrialist had been impressed by a glass cabinet designed by Gaudi. On meeting, the two became friends, with Gaudi designing the Pavilions Guell, Guell colony, the Guell Colony crypt and Park Guell for his patron. It was through Guell that Gaudi became acquainted with the wealthy industrial bourgeoisie of Barcelona who along with the church made up the bulk of his clientele.
Gaudi’s Buildings.
Gaudi began to construct Guell Palace, in 1886. Before its completion in 1890, he also took on the construction of the Episcopal palace in Astora and the college of St Teresa of Avila in Barcelona. By the 1890’s his fame had spread and he worked on a variety of houses such as Casa de Los Botines in Leon and Casa Calvet for which he won his only architectural award in 1900.
The early 20th century saw Gaudi’s creativity in full flow. Park Guell (1900-14), Guell colony crypt (1908-1915) and La Pedrera (1906-1910) demonstrate the development of Gaudi’s ‘organic construction’ with Casa Mila or La Pedrera, so called for its rock like façade, exemplifying the ideal of architecture growing out of nature. Gaudi’s influence had spread beyond Barcelona and he was commissioned to work on Majorca cathedral, a project he later abandoned and La Pobla de Lillet in the Pyrenees, built as a residence for the doctors to local miners
Sagrada Familia
In 1883, Gaudi became the architect in charge of the Church of the Sacred Family, the work that was to dominate the rest of his life. In 1892 he began the designs for the façade of the nativity and dedicated himself completely to the project from 1914 until his death. So devoted was he to his work that he lived in makeshift quarters in the church itself. He became so reclusive that when he was knocked over by a tram on the 7th June 1926, he was initially not recognised. He died three days later and was buried in the crypt of his beloved Sagrada Familia.
Sources
Leaflets from Barcelona
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