El capricho de Gaudí

Gaudí. The Genius.

Today, the work of Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) is renowned worldwide by the public at large and by architects and art historians as a genius creator, in other words, as one who "generates" (the work of a true creator). Witness to this is borne by the UNESCO by granting a fair part of his buildings the category of World Heritage.

But this has not always been the case. When Gaudí was alive, his contemporaries and the Barcelona press would often satirize his creations, calling them "ridiculous" or "in bad taste". During the first quart of the 20th century, the tension between the "new" (a demand for youth, a breaking away from the past, the reconquering of a new simplicity) and the "old" (acceptance of multiplicity, of complexity, in short, of age) kept the architect’s work in oblivion, if not overshadowed by a scornful lack of understanding.

It was not until the middle of century, his figure having been brought to the forefront by the surrealist movement (especially by Dalí and Cirlot), that the importance of the extremely special, original contribution made by Gaudí to the world of architecture and of art in general had begun to be appreciated.

In fact, Gaudí went about producing his work independently, with originality, transcending the narrow framework of Modernism. In the words of Daniel Giralt-Miracle, General Organizer of International Year:

"Gaudí is a powerful, overloaded artist, able to break faithfully with historical styles and to redefine the very essence of architecture by reconsidering the materials, procedures, techniques, calculation systems or geometric repertoires".

Gaudí (despite the fact that what first draws one’s attention in his work is the use of a profuse polychromy or highly expressive naturalist forms, almost equipped with movement) is an architect governed by the logic of rationality and functionalism, he being the first architect to use the principles of geometry ruled by warped surfaces (which govern the forms found in nature), applied to the construction of buildings, that introduced the modular construction with prefabricated elements 20 years before Lloyd Wright did so at Hollyhock House or the Barnsdall House (1922), applying criterion involving the integration of environmental factors of the place (use, function, native materials or constructional processes) in creating his buildings when a further half century was to pass by before Scandinavian architects or Lloyd Wright himself were to formalize the movement of "organic architecture".

Gaudí is an extraordinary, unrepeatable architect, with an enormous coherency between his exuberant façades and roofing, humanized habitable spaces and constructional systems. His, according to the specialist, Joan Bassegoda, is the architecture of natural reality, presented as if it were the result of a dream, a fairy story.

Josep Liz. Triangle Postals