I have been intending to post this blog post for quite some while now, and after seeing a documentary about this person recently, it has reminded me that I want to write about Gaudi.
I have to confess, before I went to Barcelona 3 years ago, I knew very little about the life and work of Antonio Gaudi apart from some of his famous architectural works. I learned that he was quite a secretive and private man, deeply religious, a loner, and a somewhat eccentric individual.
Gaudi was born in 1852, and both his parents came from families who were coppersmiths. Gaudi became very familiar with this work. As a child he was often ill, suffering rheumatic fever, and spent much of his time studying nature, making drawings, and his love of nature carried through his life - as an artist he often detailed his elaborate sculptures with beautiful studies of flora and natural elements. He scarcely used straight lines, using irregular tree like branches in roof buildings for example.
Gaudi began illustrating the weekly handrawn school newsletter with his drawings, and and in 1868 went to Barcelona to study architecture. His mother died soon after and he continued to live with his father and aunt. His father had to sell some family property to pay for this education. Gaudi, in turn, began to work for some Barcelona builders, and enjoyed the high life for a while, enjoying life and spending his first wages on dressing fashionably and keeping a well kept appearance (so different to his latter years).
Gaudi was heavily influenced by medieaval books, oriental structures and in the organic shapes of nature, and gothic art that was popular at the time, and this certainly influenced his early work. He was a great reader, and writings such as those by Englishman John Ruskin, who wrote that ornament was the origin of architecture, influenced his work. Throughout his years he suffered from rheumatism and kept a strict vegetarian diet, undertook water therapy and walking - walking was good for his rheumatism but also let him experience nature first hand, something that never left him all his life.
Gaudi was very interested in the political and social economic climate and was a Catalan nationalist. During this time the textile industry boomed and there was much wealth. Gaudi was often employed by the rich to build them homes, and they often hated the end result - Gaudi scarcely stuck to the rules, flouted building regularities and just did his own thing anyway! An example of this is Casa Batllo (often nicknamed house of bones) which was built in 1877 on Passeig de Gracia in Barcelona. It is an amazing building, but not to everyone's taste, but you can't deny it is a work of art.
Casa Batilo
Casa Batilo - House of Bones
Another is La Pedrera also on Passeig de Gracia - an apartment building which was built for wealthy clients (Mila who was a member of the Spanish parliament). They hired the most expensive architect - Gaudi - and the building was constructed from 1906 to 1912. However it caused massive disagreements with the clients and they parted company very unhappily. This building is open for viewing to the public, including an apartment in it which was lived in by Gaudi.
La Pedrera
La Pedrera
Another one of the places I visited in Barcelona was Park Guell (named after an industrialist and his patron, Eusibi Guell). It is an atonishing place - full of sculptures, building, surprises ... here are some of my photos from that trip ...
Park Guell
Mosiac seating in Park Guell
My favourite Gaudi piece of architecture though by far is the impressive La Sagrada Familia or temple. The temple is vast, not expected to be finished for another 100 years, and is a beautiful piece of work. When I visited it I looked up at the inside of the roof and was moved to tears by the beauty and sheer scale of it all, the feeling of how it had mostly all been built without the aid of modern machinery. The temple is so vast there is a lift in one of the four steeples, which when you reach the top affords wonderful views of Barcelona. The only downside is walking back down hundreds of stone spiral steps, like a helter skelter, down to the ground level. Gaudi ended his days living in the crypt in La Sagrada Familia - and spent 43 years directing work - his last (still unfinished) work.
La Sagrada Familia
You can clearly see building work going on everywhere
Closer up detail
View from the top!!
|The roof of La Sagrada Familia ... that moved me so
I will urge you to check out his work for yourself, so this blog doesnt get too long. Sadly aged 73, Gaudi was run over by a tram in 1926, and was unrecognised, having by then adopted the attire of a vagrant and carrying no money. He ended up in a pauper's hospital in Barcelona. When he was eventually found by friends, they wanted to move him to a better hospital, but Gaudi refused, saying he belonged to the poor. Gaudi died 3 days later and was interred in La Sagrada Familia.
One thing I learned today is that the Alan Parsons Project released an album in 1987 about the work of Gaudi! Now that is something I didnt know and I really have to check it out!
