GAUDÍ I CORNET, Antoni

(1852-1926)

   Antoni Gaudí i Cornet is known for his beautifully organic "Catalonian Modernism," a regional variety of Art Nouveau that he developed in the northern Spanish region of Catalonia at the turn of the century. Barcelona had undergone a dramatic urban renewal beginning in the 1860s, and as a fiercely independent city whose residents still seek separation from Spain, artists there cultivated their own version of European modernismo. Thus, while the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso worked primarily in Paris, thereby bringing Spain into the early modern art discourse, Catalonian artists such as Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, and Gaudí remained strongly connected to their Catalonian homeland. Gaudí's strangely unique style that demonstrates a creative mixture of organic elements, Gothic style, and modern inventions, was derided in its day but has fostered the most important architectural contributions to the city of Barcelona.

   His most loyal patron was the wealthy industrialist Eusebí Güell, for whom Gaudí completed the Palau Güell in the late 1880s, a building now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A unique feature of this building, used to entertain important guests, was the reception room with peepholes for the owners to peer through before greeting their guests. In addition, the grand ballroom was built with small holes in the ceiling so that lanterns could be hung outside to illuminate the interior with star-like points of light. The Casa Mila, built in 1905, is an equally interesting apartment house. This building, nicknamed "The Quarry" due to its curved and angular rocky exterior, anticipated the biomorphic style of architecture seen in the work of such later architects as Erich Mendelsohn. The building is supported by a series of parabolic, or catenary arches, a type of arch invented in Catalonia. Gaudí also designed sculpted walls and benches for the Güell Park, located on the outskirts of Barcelona. Here, the playful curved benches are inset with colored stone mosaic, integrating the movement of the benches with the organic lines found in nature.

   Finally, Gaudí's masterpiece, the building for which he is best known, is his Sagrada Familia, begun in 1884, and to this day not completed. This massive cathedral in downtown Barcelona was constructed with 18 towers in a fantastic pseudo-Gothic style that looks surreal, with looming pinnacles that appear to melt into each other, and pointed arches that seem to be formed from a giant grotto. While initially influenced by the writings of Gothic revivalists John Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc in his use of pointed arches and pinnacles, Gaudí then seems to have dispensed with architectural regulations and traditions to create a highly expressive building of exuberant decoration that, in its unique and dramatic break with tradition, came to symbolize Catalonian nationalism. Perhaps the most unusual church ever constructed, this unfinished building is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Spain today.

   See also EXPRESSIONISM.