- Spain 1978. Antoni Gaudi on the background of Mila House. This was Gaudi's last great civil building, completed in 1910.
Works of Antoni Gaudí (1984,
2005)
Spain
Seven properties built by the architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) in or near Barcelona testify to Gaudí’s exceptional creative contribution to the development of architecture and building technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Parque Güell, Palacio Büell, Casa Mila, Casa Vicens, Gaudí’s work on the Nativity façade and Crypt of the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Casa Batlló, and the Crypt in Colonia Güell represent an eclectic, as well as a very personal, style which was given free reign in the design of gardens, sculpture and all decorative arts, as well as architecture
Mila House, popularly called "La Pedrera" looks like a mass of undulating stone where architecture turns
into sculpture and where the original roof and chimneys, abstract and
anachronistic, are especially eye-catching. Among Gaudi's other celebrated
works is the apartment building The Casa Batiló (1907). Both structures
in stone and iron minimize traditional straight lines and flat surfaces by
the use of rounded, irregularly spaced openings and a roof of balconies
that have a wavelike appearance.
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Güell Palace, which took four years to build, was finished in 1890. It
was commissioned by the Catalan philanthropist Esebio Güell, Gaudi's main
patron.
In it, Gaudi uses parabolic arches with a constructive and ornamental function, mushroom-shaped and hyperbolic capitals, and chimneys with abstract decoration.
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Gaudi's work in Barcelona was inscribed on the World Heritage List, not only because of his original craftsmanship, but because he signals the end of nineteenth-century eclectic architecture and leads the way to contemporary creations, unrestrained by the past, and his work represents an exceptional and outstanding creative contribution to the development of architecture and building technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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In 1883 Gaudí was appointed official architect of the huge Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Família (Church of the Holy Family), which, although still unfinished at his death, is acknowledged as his masterpiece. Its lofty semicubist towers, with mosaic-covered finials, dominate the Barcelona skyline, and its imaginative forms, colors, and textures are unmatched in European architecture. La Sagrada Familia should not be confused with the gigantic Cathedral of Barcelona, called "La Seu", which is a Gothic masterpiece, more than 700 years old.
Every part of the design of La Sagrada Família is rich with Christian symbolism, as Gaudí intended the church to be the "last great sanctuary of Christendom." Its most striking aspect are its spindle-shaped towers. A total of 18 tall towers are called for, representing in ascending order of height the 12 apostles, the four Evangelists, the Virgin Mary and, tallest of all, Jesus Christ. There is no "recognizable style" in the architecture, which is a mixture between Art Nouveau, Modernisme, and Gothic Architecture.
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The evangelists' towers will be surmounted by sculptures of
their traditional symbols: a bull St. Luke), an angel (St. Matthew), an
eagle (St. John), and a lion (St. Mark).
The central tower of Jesus Christ is to be surmounted by a giant cross, and the tower's total height will be one metre less than that of Montjuïc, as Gaudí believed that his work should not surpass that of God. The lower towers are surmounted by bunches of grapes, representing spiritual fruit.
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The Passion façade of the Sagrada Familia Church, designed by sculptor Josep Subirachs, features a 4×4 magic square. No matter how you add the numbers (downwards, sideward, diagonally -- you end up with the result of 33, the magic sum of the square is 33, the age of Jesus at the time of the Passion. Structurally, it is very similar to the Melancholia magic square, appearing on a painting by the German Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer, but it has had the numbers in four of the cells reduced by 1.
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The Magic Square is also known elsewhere in European Art, most notably on the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer's copper plate engraving "Melancolia I" (1514).
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Gaudí’s work exhibits an important interchange of
values closely associated with the cultural and artistic currents of his time,
as represented in el Modernisme of Catalonia.
It anticipated and influenced many of the forms and techniques that were relevant to the development of modern construction in the 20th century. Also, his work represents a series of outstanding examples of the building typology in the architecture of the early 20th century, residential as well as public, to the development of which he made a significant and creative contribution.
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Gaudí was deeply involved in Catalan nationalism, of which he was a leader. He died June 10, 1926, in Barcelona.
Sources and links:
Other World Heritage Sites in Spain (on this site). Please refer to the UNESCO-listing, Spain-section, for further information on the individual properties.
Revised 19 jul 2007 |
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