No Spain vacation is complete without viewing Gaudi’s famous works.  With his wildly inventive design sense, the architect Antonio Gaudí is revered in Barcelona today as the ultimate Catalan genius.  Every one of his buildings is a prized monument; his fantastical shapes and whimsical flourishes are reproduced on millions of souvenir T-shirts, mouse pads and coffee cups; there is even a campaign by local Catholics to have Gaudí canonized as a saint.

But ironically enough, while Gaudí was alive, Barceleños were by no means convinced of his brilliance – in fact, many civic leaders regarded him as a crank and a vandal who was defacing the neo-classical beauty of the city.  And Gaudí was, without doubt, an eccentric figure.  He was born into a wealthy family, and in his twenties seemed a typical gentleman boulavadier, devoting his time to frivolous café life and the half-hearted study of architecture, almost as a part-time hobby.

Everything changed when, at the age of 31, Gaudí’s proposal of marriage was rejected by the woman he loved.  Heart-broken, he took refuge in religion.  He turned his back on his family’s wealth and decided to live as an ascetic, wandering the city long-haired and in simple robes, eating only a diet of nuts and lettuce leaves dipped in milk.  But he continued designing buildings, which he now thought of as offerings to God, drawing on the patterns of Nature – the subtle flowing of water, the shapes of tree roots, the scales of fish or membranes of butterfly wings. 

While some thought him mad, other important patrons in Barcelona – most notably Eusebi Güell, a wealthy industrialist – saw a divine spark in his spiritual imagery.  After 1911, when Gaudí began full-time work on his masterpiece, the enormous Church of the Sagrada Familia, he lived in a humble hut on the site, sleeping on a pallet like a medieval monk.

In 1926, he was hit by a tram and killed; the ambulance drivers, assuming he was a beggar, took his body to a pauper’s hospital, where frantic admirers finally found him.  His funeral, however, was attended by thousands: the people of Barcelona realized that they had lost a truly original spirit, and vowed to complete the soaring Sagrada Familia.  An ambitious task to this day, latest projection for its completion is the centenary of Gaudí’s death, in 2026.

Other Gaudi works in Barcelona include: Casa Batllo, Casa Mila, Park Guell & Colonia Guell.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 7:29 am and is filed under Spain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.