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Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (/ ɡ aʊ ˈ d i / gow-DEE, / ˈ ɡ aʊ d i / GOW-dee, Catalan: [ənˈtɔni ɣəwˈði]; 25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926) was a Catalan architect and designer from Spain, known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, sui generis style.
- Architect
- 10 June 1926 (aged 73), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
- Overview
- Life
- Legacy
Antoni Gaudí was a Catalan architect whose distinctive style is characterized by freedom of form, voluptuous colour and texture, and organic unity. The close integration between the construction, form, and decoration of Gaudí’s buildings reveals his interest in nature and his belief that the structure of a natural object informs its shape and embellishment.
What is Antoni Gaudí famous for?
Much of Antoni Gaudí’s career was occupied with the construction of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. It was unfinished at his death in 1926. Other notable projects included Park Güell, Casa Milá, and Casa Batlló, all also in Barcelona.
How was Antoni Gaudí educated?
Showing an early interest in architecture, Antoni Gaudí went to study in Barcelona in 1869/70 and entered the Provincial School of Architecture in 1874. His studies were interrupted by military service and other intermittent activities, but he graduated in 1878.
What was Antoni Gaudí’s family like?
Gaudí was born in provincial Catalonia on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Of humble origins, he was the son of a coppersmith who was to live with him in later life, together with a niece; Gaudí never married. Showing an early interest in architecture, he went in 1869/70 to study in Barcelona, then the political and intellectual centre of Catalonia as well as Spain’s most modern city. He did not graduate until eight years later, his studies having been interrupted by military service and other intermittent activities.
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Artists, Painters, & Architects
Gaudí’s style of architecture went through several phases. On emergence from the Provincial School of Architecture in Barcelona in 1878, he practiced a rather florid Victorianism that had been evident in his school projects, but he quickly developed a manner of composing by means of unprecedented juxtapositions of geometric masses, the surfaces of which were highly animated with patterned brick or stone, gay ceramic tiles, and floral or reptilian metalwork. The general effect, although not the details, is Moorish—or Mudéjar, as Spain’s special mixture of Muslim and Christian design is called. Examples of his Mudéjar style are the Casa Vicens (1878–80) and El Capricho (1883–85) and the Güell Estate and Güell Palace of the later 1880s, all but El Capricho located in Barcelona. Next, Gaudí experimented with the dynamic possibilities of historic styles: the Gothic in the Episcopal Palace, Astorga (1887–93), and the Casa de los Botines, León (1892–94); and the Baroque in the Casa Calvet at Barcelona (1898–1904). But after 1902 his designs elude conventional stylistic nomenclature.
Except for certain overt symbols of nature or religion, Gaudí’s buildings became essentially representations of their structure and materials. In his Villa Bell Esguard (1900–02) and the Güell Park (1900–14), in Barcelona, and in the Colonia Güell Church (1898–c. 1915), south of that city, he arrived at a type of structure that has come to be called equilibrated—that is, a structure designed to stand on its own without internal bracing, external buttressing, and the like—or, as Gaudí observed, as a tree stands. Among the primary elements of his system were piers and columns that tilt to transmit diagonal thrusts, and thin-shell, laminated tile vaults that exert very little thrust. Gaudí applied his equilibrated system to two multistoried Barcelona apartment buildings: the Casa Batlló (1904–06), a renovation that incorporated new equilibrated elements, notably the facade; and the Casa Milá (1905–10), the several floors of which are structured like clusters of tile lily pads with steel-beam veins. As was so often his practice, he designed the two buildings, in their shapes and surfaces, as metaphors of the mountainous and maritime character of Catalonia.
As an admired, if eccentric, architect, Gaudí was an important participant in the Renaixensa, an artistic revival of the arts and crafts combined with a political revival in the form of fervent anti-Castilian “Catalanism.” Both movements sought to reinvigorate the way of life in Catalonia that had long been suppressed by the Castilian-dominated and Madrid-centred government in Spain. The religious symbol of the Renaixensa in Barcelona was the Sagrada Família, a project that was to occupy Gaudí throughout his entire career. He was commissioned to build this church as early as 1883, but he did not live to see it finished. Working on it, he became increasingly pious. After 1910 he abandoned virtually all other work and even eventually secluded himself on its site and resided in its workshop. In 1926, while on his way to vespers, Gaudí was struck down by a trolley car, and he died from the injuries just a few weeks shy of his 74th birthday. After Gaudí’s death, work continued on the Sagrada Família well into the 21st century. In 2010 the uncompleted church was consecrated as a basilica by Pope Benedict XVI.
The architectural work of Gaudí is remarkable for its range of forms, textures, and polychromy and for the free, expressive way in which these elements of his art seem to be composed. The complex geometries of a Gaudí building so coincide with its architectural structure that the whole, including its surface, gives the appearance of being a natural...
Apr 2, 2014 · Learn about the life and works of Antoni Gaudí, a Barcelona-based Spanish architect who created organic and nature-inspired structures influenced by his Catalan Modernista movement. Find out his early years, development as a professional architect, final work and death, and legacy of the Sagrada Familia.
Learn about the life and work of Antoni Gaudí, the most famous modern Spanish architect and designer of Art Nouveau and Modernisme. Explore his biography, influences, styles, and major projects, such as the Sagrada Família church in Barcelona and the Casa Vicens residence in Reus. Discover how he used innovative techniques, materials, and symbols to create his distinctive and iconic designs.
- Catalan
- June 25, 1852
- Reus, Catalonia, Spain
- June 10, 1926
Learn about the life and work of Antoni Gaudí, the Catalan architect who created a unique and personal architectural language that defies classification. Discover his childhood, studies, projects, influences, and legacy at Casa Batlló and other famous buildings.
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Descobreix la vida i l'obra d'Antoni Gaudí, un geni de l'arquitectura moderna que va dedicar més de quaranta anys a la Sagrada Família. Conheix els seus altres projectes a Barcelona i Catalunya, i els seus reconeixements com a Patrimoni de la Humanitat.
Discover the seven properties built by the architect Antoni Gaudí in or near Barcelona, a unique and outstanding contribution to modern architecture and building technology. Learn about their eclectic, personal style, cultural and artistic value, and conservation status.
