Antoni Gaudí. Jeremy Roe
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way to measure Gaudí’s public recognition is the response to his death. He was killed as a result of an accident. On Monday 7 June 1926, after a day’s work in the workshop of the Sagrada Familia, he set off on foot, as was his custom, across the city to the Church of San Felipe Neri to attend confession. He was never to arrive. In the inquiry into his death the driver of a tram reported that he had hit a man who appeared to be a tramp, and that he had been unable to slow down.
The tramp-like figure was none other than Gaudí! After the accident he was assisted by two passers-by and the Guardia Civil, who eventually took him to a nearby dispensary. This after being refused assistance from several taxi drivers due to the appearance of the victim.
As a result of being knocked over by the tram Gaudí suffered fractured ribs, cerebral contusions and hemorrhaging in his ear. He was taken to hospital, yet he remained unidentified. The failure to identify Gaudí may be explained by the fact that his personal austerity had become such that he rarely changed his clothes, which were recognisable to his peers.
Although his appearance and clothes had been the subject of caricatures in the press, when seen in the grave context of a hospital and not set against the backdrop of the Sagrada Familia, his image rendered him anonymous.
However, Gaudí had not been forgotten. His friend Mossèn Gil Parés became concerned by his absence and that evening began looking for the architect in Barcelona’s hospitals. He was found in the Santa Cruz hospital.
After he was recognised he was moved to a private room and the following day he regained consciousness. The news spread and Gaudí was visited by friends, official representatives of Church and State and others who wanted to show their respect for the architect.
As well as these displays of recognition for the man and his work, Gaudí’s final days were also a display of his faith and political sentiments. He was given the sacrament of the Last Rites, and as he lay in bed awaiting death he held a crucifix. He had been offered a private clinic rather than the public hospital. Nevertheless he insisted that he remain and end his life amongst the people.
Gaudí died on Thursday 10 June. His passing was marked by a funeral that honoured his contribution to the traditions and faith of the Catalan people. Papal permission was acquired to bury him in the crypt of the Sagrada Familia, and the funeral took place on the Saturday.
The procession that followed his coffin to its final resting place testified to the architect’s importance and recognition among the different areas of society: it included politicians from Barcelona as well as his native town of Reus; representatives of the Church; members of the religious and cultural associations to which he had belonged and to which he had contributed to, and many of the craftsmen from the city-workers’ guilds also attended.
In this way the passion and commitment that Gaudí had shown in the different aspects of his life and work were all commemorated.
19. Güell Crypt, Stained glass window.
Gaudí’s Barcelona
Gaudí and the Architecture of his Day
20. Casa Vicens, Tower detail.
Gaudí’s support for Catalan nationalism combined with his dedication to the Catholic faith, were important social and cultural factors that informed his work as an architect. These aspects of Gaudí’s work can be examined in more detail, through an analysis of the development of a modern discourse and practice of architecture in Barcelona. Integral to these developments was Barcelona’s national and spiritual identity. Both had evolved over the course of long histories spanning centuries, however in the nineteenth-century they were given renewed vigour and, what is more, became closely linked.
At the heart of this cultural change was the growing industrial strength and economic wealth of Barcelona and Catalonia as a whole. Architecture provided a key medium for individuals and the city to define a modern identity and express the new found optimism the modern era promised. This chapter locates Gaudí and his work amidst his contemporaries, and seeks to view him less as an isolated genius, instead as a man of his times whose work sought to embody many of the ideals of Barcelona as an historical, spiritual and modern city.
The following discussion combines discussion of historical and theoretical themes with an analysis of a series of works by Gaudí. Some of these are designs on paper and were never built or are now lost, while others are completed buildings. The intention is to provide a general introduction to Gaudí and Barcelona as the nineteenth-century merged into the twentieth, however it is also centred around the statement of Juan Bassegoda Nonell that,
“When discussing Gaudí one cannot distinguish the concepts of architect, interior decorator, designer, painter or artisan. He was all of these things at the same time.”
The works examined illustrate the diversity of Gaudí’s skills, and although many of them could be called minor works they all offer fascinating insights into his design, art and architecture.
Gaudí may be identified with a number of artistic and intellectual currents running through Western Europe as industrialisation brought rapid change to almost all aspects of life. The Arts and Crafts Movement and the style known as Art Nouveau are the clearest parallels.
However, to map these webs of connections frequently offers a vision of the past configured more by contemporary interests. The approach taken here is to focus on the specific cultural setting of Barcelona, and in particular the movement known as Modernisme, which should be translated as Modernism with caution if at all, as it refers to a very specific period from around 1890 to 1910.
21. Park Güell, Fountain.
Modernisme
Modernisme is applied to a range of visual and literary arts. With regard to architecture the term describes a group of architects led by Gaudí and Domènech i Montaner but also including other names such as Josep Marià Jujol, who worked closely with Gaudí. Where modern cultural movements begin and end is always a point of debate. Some historians would place the start of Modernisme between 1883 and 1888 with Gaudí’s Casa Vicens while others not until Domènech’s work for Barcelona’s Universal Exhibition in 1888.
Consensus seems to have been reached that Modernisme as an architectural movement had run its course by 1910, which raises the issue of where to place Gaudí’s last works such as the Sagrada Familia. Robert Hughes states:
“In certain respects Gaudí was not a modernista architect at all. His religious obsessions, for instance, separate him from the generally secular character of Modernisme. Gaudí did not believe in Modernity. He wanted to find radically new ways of being radically old…”
However, Gaudí may undoubtedly be identified as making a key contribution to Barcelona’s Modernisme. To explore his identity as a ‘modern figure’ the concerns of Modernisme need to be considered in more detail. Attention will be focused firstly on the needs of the city, then on theories of architectural style and finally on the ideological dimensions of architecture.
22. Casa Vicens, Lateral façade.
23. Park Güell, Leaning columns of the viaducts.
Barcelona: The Growth of a Modern City
The history of nineteenth-century architecture in Barcelona is marked by a need to respond to the growth of the city. The rapid growth of population produced by industrial factories led to urban expansion beyond Barcelona’s famed medieval quarter with its winding Gothic streets.
In 1859 the City Council held a competition for designs for a new urban plan. It was won by the engineer Ildefons Cerdà, who presented an abstract rational design of straight streets