Barcelona:
Antoni Gaudi created places that delight people
Recently, my husband Ted and I traveled to Barcelona, Spain — long on my bucket list of places to see. Barcelona has something in common with Bar Harbor: tourists flock there to enjoy the beauty; to Bar Harbor for its natural beauty, to Barcelona for its edifices designed by architect Antoni Gaudi, who imitated and celebrated nature.
“Gaudi turned to nature — which he called his greatest teacher — to study what it did to support things — trees, rocks, limbs, bodies both animal and human. He then applied nature’s techniques to the buildings he had been asked to build. . . .it is almost as though Gaudi’s work was a conversation with his God, utterly private and yet conducted in public. That, perhaps is what made his buildings fly.” [from John Gill in his book, Essential Gaudi]
For me, I knew I had to see Gaudi’s works in person to fully understand their intricacis and spaces. They aren’t just surface decoration. They are structurally marvelous; and Gaudi manipulated light, air, and water with systems far ahead of his time. He was not afraid to decorate the features of his built works in various ways, most significantly with trendcadis, a mosaic technique using broken ceramics. Many of these features served more than one purpose, working together with other features integrated into a whole — my goal as an architect as well. Therefore, it was pure joy for me to experience the spaces and places Gaudi created.
Inspiration from A. Gaudi
Gaudí was known for his deep faith and devotion to God, evidenced by his extensive prayer life and the fact that he saw his architecture as a way to glorify God. Hence, recent efforts to place him on the pathway to sainthood — Pope Francis signed a decree declaring Antoni Gaudi venerable, a first step to the path.
In 1883, Gaudi took over work on the Sagrada Familia from its original architect, Francisco Villar, a project originally commissioned to restore the place of Catholicism in society. [see plan right: blue is Villar’s plan, red is added by Gaudi] “Gaudi’s guiding vision was a church — and inside it, a religion — that would bring its congregation as close as possible to the living experience of their belief. In pursuit of this, he stripped the temple of much of the excess of Gothic adornment, and cleared the interior space to give the congregation the greatest visual and ritual access to the mass. . . he turned to the tree and the arch to find new ways of supporting such a monumental structure.” [from John Gill’s book, Essential Gaudi] He also used prefabricated stone panels in the structure and for exterior adornment. For a virtual tour go to https://sagradafamilia.org/en/virtual-tour .
When he began work on Sagrada Familia, his first major job – the Casa Vicens, was still under construction, completed 1885. Designed for a tile merchant, Gaudi used brick and tile as major material throughout in fanciful ways that would also show his engineering prowess. He managed light and ventilation with patterned screens, borrowed from Moorish architecture, and used these techniques in this and following designs to add richness to the human experience.
Park Guell was a massive undertaking that was never fully realized. Eusebi Guell and Gaudi together envisioned a utopian community tied to a public park and plaza where community events and theatrical productions could build and enliven interaction. The plaza, bounded by the undulating snake bench, skinned with rich trencadi (broken tile mosaic) has a vast view of Barcelona as well as a focus to a very flexible performance area, with side views of garden. References to animal forms, trees, mushrooms (Guell’s mycology hobby), Masonic iconography, and Catalan myths abound in the trencadi and major built forms. Unseen is an elaborate system for channeling, filtering and recycling rainwater.
At the Casa Batllo richness of form, pattern, and color with references to Catalan stories (Saint George slays the dragon) and underwater sea life transformed a renovation of a very bland 6 story building. Completed in 1906 for a cotton baron who allowed Gaudi full freedom, it carries voluptuous forms while offering natural light and air to every room. Visitors will see Gaudi’s version of the Catalan Arch, sculpted ceilings, and an atrium that makes use of operable windows and ventilation louvers. The atrium is faced with blue tile that deepens in intensity as one moves closer to the top. This produces an even distribution of light throughout the house.
You can understand why I had to see and experience these places that pictures can’t fully describe. Yet, Gaudi died a poor man, having dedicated the last half of his life to the design and construction of the Sagrada Familia. He begged for funds to carry on the work and poured his own assets into it. He considered this work his worship and his calling.
Today, scores of people line up all day long every day to see Sagrada Familia and Gaudi’s other works. The foundations that run tours and maintenance of these structures have no lack.
