Antoni Gaudi
Born on 25 June 1852 in Camp de Tarragona, Catalonia,
Spain. His father and both his grandparents were boilermakers, and as Gaudí
himself recounted, he learned his special skill in dealing with
three-dimensional space by observing boilermakers at work. Another key fact in
the architect's childhood was his delicate health which forced him to spend
long periods convalescing at home. There he spent many hours contemplating
nature, drawing lessons that he was to apply later in his architecture.
After starting his secondary education at the Escolapian School in Reus,
Antoni Gaudí moved to Barcelona in 1869. In the Catalan capital he completed
his schooling and after meeting the entrance requirements in 1873 enrolled in
the Provincial School of Architecture. Although an indifferent student he
showed early indications of genius, opening the way to collaboration with some
of his lecturers. After gaining his architect's diploma in January 1878, Gaudí
set up his own firm.
Gaudí's rise to be one of the most outstanding architects of the first
Modernista generation was meteoric. In the final decades of the nineteenth
century when he completed the Güell Palace he was already one of the most
famous architects in Barcelona. This work saw the end of Gaudí’s first youthful
phase, marked by a personal revision of Gothic and Muslim architecture and
including buildings like Casa Vicens, El Capricho, the Güell Estate buildings,
the crypt of the Sagrada Familia, the School of the Teresianas and the
Episcopal Palace in Astorga. From 1890 onwards Gaudí perfected his understanding
of architectural space and the applied arts, giving his work unique and
unsuspected qualities that stood out from the other Modernist architecture of
his day.
In 1914 he abandoned all other work to concentrate on the Sagrada
Familia. Aware that he would not live to see it completed, he did his best to
leave it at an advanced stage for coming generations. In fact, Gaudí was only
to see one of its towers in its final form. On 10 June 1926 the architect died
from injuries suffered after being run over by a tram. Two days later he was
buried at the Sagrada Familia.
No comments:
Post a Comment