He studied at the Escola Superior d’Arquitectura in Barcelona and began his architectural career with a Gothic Revival style for his first major commission – the Casa Vincens in Barcelona (1883-5). As his work progressed, he developed a sinuous, flowing, almost surreal form of design which placed him at the forefront of the Spanish Art Nouveau movement.

Gaudi’s idiosyncratic and bizarre-looking architecture drew admiration from other avant-garde artists, including his fellow countryman the Surrealist painter Salvador Dali. The emergence of Gatlin entirely original style is to be found at the Palau Giiell in Barcelona (1885-9). Here, under the patronage of a textile businessman, Count Guell, Gaudi was given the opportunity to experiment with unusual, sculpted chimney pots and the use of tiled mosaic. These two features frequently occur in his later work.

Such was the success of this house design that Gaudi was invited by Güell to design a workers’ community for his textile plant at Santa Coloma de Cervello (Colonia Güell) in 1891. Seventeen years later he worked on the chapel. For Güell he also designed the Park Güell on Barcelona’s outskirts. Here glittering, gaudy mosaics of tiles and mirror bedeck the swooping stairways, sculpted benches, the mock Grecian theatre, underground grottoes and curious stone beasts which Gaudi planted in the rural setting. It was full of fantasy, far removed from the original intention of creating an English garden suburb.

Gaudi’s imagination was also given full rein on two housing projects in Barcelona, the Casa Batlló, (1905-7) and the exuberant Casa Mila (1905-7). Both incorporate strong maritime imagery. Casa Batlló has a sculpted facade of waves and fishbone shapes surrounding windows and forming balconies. The exterior was completed with a coral effect of broken ceramic tiles. The sense of the bizarre was continued inside, where no two apartments were the same, and none had straight walls. At the nearby Casa Mila the sculpted facade was further embellished with ornate iron balconies resembling tangles of seaweed.

Gaudi’s undoubted masterpiece is the unfinished Expiatory Church of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, where he worked from 1884 until his tragic death in 1926 when he was knocked down and killed by a tram just outside the building. Work on the church charts the styles Gaudi evolved during his career as one of the famous architects in the history of architecture. At the crypt level a Gothic design is used, but as the building climbs towards the sky the structure passes through an Art Nouveau stage before becoming more surreal and fanciful, finishing in the four intricately carved, open-work cone-shaped spires. Work to Gaudi’s designs is still continuing on the church.

List of Gaudi’s major works

• Casa Vincens, Barcelona, 1883-5.
• Palau Gild, Barcelona, 1885-9.
• Workers’ community at Santa Coloma de Cement), Barcelona, 1891, and a chapel at the same site, 1908.
• Park Güell, Barcelona, 1900- 1911.
• Casa Batik., Barcelona, 1905-7.
• Casa Mila, Barcelona. 1905-7.
• Expiatory Church of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, from 1884.

Bibliography

• George Collins, Antoni Gaudi, New York, 1960.
• Roberto Pane, Antoni Gaudi, Milan, 1964.
• Ignast de Sola-Morales, Gaudi, New York, 1984.
• Rainer Zerbst, Antoni Gaudi, Cologne, 1988.

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