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Antoni Gaudi i Cornet was worn in the province of Tarragona in Catalonia in 1852. The fifth child of his working class parents; Gaudi’s father was a coppersmith and the family although not wealthy, was not entirely poverty stricken. Gaudi’s childhood was by no means conventional; a rheumatic problem prevented a young Gaudi from being able to play with other children his age.
The pain in his legs stopped him from walking and meant that he needed the services of a donkey just to get around. On account of these disabilities Gaudi spent much of his childhood as an observer – studying animals, plants and stones. Some even claim that this isolation may have provided Gaudi with his amazing eye for detail and his love of the natural and organic that can clearly be seen in all of his architectural work.
Gaudi was by no means a genius at school but he worked hard and continued to blossom and improve throughout his school career, eventually attaining excellent grades. In 1873 Gaudi moved to Barcelona to study at the “Escuela Tecnica Superior de Arqitectura”. Gaudi was by no means top of the class, attaining average grades but his studies were to give him the perfect platform from which to launch his architectural ideas. Indeed, some of Gaudi’s ideas left his tutors wondering whether they had a genius, or a lunatic, on their hands.
In terms of influence, Gaudi was strongly influenced by French architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc who championed the Gothic revival in France and was famed for his bold restoration projects. Gaudi was also keen to draw on traditional Catalan architecture; he was a fiercely proud Catalan man himself and loved the area with a passion. In 1878 Gaudi was officially given the title of architect after five years of studying.
Turn of the century Barcelona was the perfect place for a young Gaudi to thrive; the city was undergoing an industrial boom mainly due to the growing textile industry. There was also a thread of Catalan independence emerging as the city began to seek its own identity, away from the administrative constraints of the capital, Madrid . Building projects and development opportunities were readily available and during this period Gaudi made a very influential ally in rich industrialist Eusebi Guell, a man who was to commission and support a number of Gaudi’s architectural projects.
Gaudi was to take on projects mainly in his native Catalonia ; some of his work was ridiculed by his contemporaries – without the support of Guell (who recognised Gaudi’s inherent genius) it’s unlikely that he’d be the celebrated figure he is today. Perhaps the world wasn’t quite ready for Gaudi just yet although he quickly gained respect in modern artistic circles. His deconstruction of classic architecture, refusal to use straight lines and organic shapes lent his buildings a surreal air that clearly wasn’t to the tastes of his more traditional peers.
One of his greatest works, “Casa Mila” was known locally as “La Pedrera” (“the Quarry”) and although this remains the nickname for the building to this day, there was nothing complimentary intended in its meaning. Gaudi also studied the writings of British art critic and thinker John Ruskin particularly with regards the theory that the “ornament is the origin of architecture”.
If one work is to define Gaudi then surely it would have to be the “Sagrada Familia”. He took control of the project in 1883 and would devote a huge part of the next 43 years of his life to project, right up until his death. |
