Charles - Gaudí

The life of Antoni Gaud (1852-1926) is best told and analysed through a focused study of his works. The buildings, plans and designs testify to Gauds character, interests and remarkable creativity in a way that research into his childhood, his daily routines and working habits can illuminate only dimly. In addition to this, Gaud was not an academic thinker keen to preserve his thoughts and ideas for posterity through either teaching or writing. He worked in the sphere of practical, rather than theoretical work.

General view

Were this not enough to challenge attempts to gauge the mind of this innovative architect the violence of Spains Civil War resulted in the destruction of a large part of the Gaud archive, and this has denied a deeper understanding of Gaud the man, his character and thoughts. On 29 th July in the first year of the Spanish Civil war the Sagrada Familia was broken into, and documents, designs and architectural models stored in the crypt were destroyed. The absence of documentation limits the possibility of a searching biographical study, and it has encouraged rather more speculative interpretations of the architect. Today Gaud has gained an almost mythic status in the same way that his buildings have become iconic.

Episcopal Palace of Astorga

Entrance porch detail

While his work continues to attract the devotions of many thousands of tourists, his life inspires a range of responses. Besides the academic scholarship of Joan Bassegoda i Nonnell, for example, or the recent biographical study of Gijs Van Hensenberg, the life of Gaud has prompted hagiographies and more imaginative reflections. In a different vein Barcelonas acclaimed opera house, el Liceu, premiered the opera Antoni Gaud by Joan Guinjoan in 2004 and this process of cultural celebration has taken on a metaphysical dimension with the campaign by the Associaci Pro Beataifici dAntoni Gaud to canonise him.

Episcopal Palace of Astorga

View of entrance

The ongoing celebrations and constructions of Gaud the man by various groups signals how in our Post-Modern age the ascetic, inspired, untiring creator remains a key trope of creativity in the popular imagination. Gaud remains an enigmatic figure and attempts to interpret him tend to tell us more about the interpreter, as is illustrated in the following quotations. Salvador Dal records an exchange with the architect Le Corbusier in his essay As of the terrifying and edible beauty of modern-style architecture . Dal stated, that the last great genius of architecture was called Gaud whose name in Catalan means enjoy.

Episcopal Palace of Astorga

Chimney

He comments that Le Corbusiers face signalled his disagreement but Dal continued, arguing that the enjoyment and desire [which] are characteristic of Catholicism and of the Mediterranean Gothic were reinvented and brought to their paroxysm by Gaud. The notion of Gaud and his architecture with which the Surrealist confronted the rational Modernist architect illustrates a recurring feature in the historiography of Gaud, which is the concern to isolate Gaud from the specific history of architecture and render him as a visionary genius.