October 2022 digital edition

The
architectural
legacy
of Antoni
Gaudi:
His last, La Sagrada Familia;
his first, a co-op
LA SAGRADA
FAMILIA HAS
BECOME THE
MOST VISITED
SITE IN SPAIN
By David J Thompson
Antoni Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona,
Spain, is the Catalonian architect’s most
majestic and iconic gift to the world. In the eyes
of his contemporaries, Gaudi was viewed as
God’s architect here on Earth, and in 2010, Pope
Benedict XVI designated it as a basilica for its
religious importance.
La Sagrada Familia (‘The Holy Family’) has
become the most visited site in Spain, with
7 million people a year coming to gaze at its
facade and over 3 million people venturing
inside. If all goes as planned, it will be the last of
Gaudi’s buildings to be completed.
Gaudi began building La Sagrada Familia in
1882. Today, in 2022, construction has continued
on an almost daily basis for 140 years, yet only
eight of the 18 spires Gaudi designed have been
completed. If fully completed as planned in 2026,
the tallest spire will rise to 560 feet, making it the
tallest religious building in Europe. Following
his respect for the magnitude of nature, Gaudi
ensured that La Sagrada Familia would be
one metre (three feet) shorter than Montjuïc -
Barcelona’s tallest hill.
Antoni Gaudi was born in 1852 in the rural
province of Tarragona, Catalonia, and later
attributed the critical impact of nature on his
work to the years of his childhood spent in the
countryside and on the long organised group
hikes he took as a young man. These experiences
also made him a lifelong champion of Catalonia’s
unique language, culture and heritage. Gaudi
saw nature as God’s teaching hand. “The straight
line belongs to man, the curved to God,” he said.
Moving to Barcelona in 1868, Gaudi studied
utopian socialism and became intrigued with
the communal architecture and way of life of
the “phalanstère” of the French philosopher,
Charles Fourier, where 500-2000 people live
within a utopian building, working together for
mutual benefit. Later, he studied the arts and
crafts work of William Morris and the writings of
John Ruskin.
Gaudi also worked with Eusebi Gűell on
creating a Garden City for Barcelona modelled
after Ebenezer Howard, founder of the garden
city movement. That land later became Park
Gűell and retained the English spelling of
‘Park’ as a tribute to the original plan. He joined
numerous organisations which took pride in
their Catalonian heritage and, filled with new
concepts and ideas to promote Catalonia being
known for its own architectural style, Gaudi
went on to become the leading exponent of
Catalan modernism.
Although Gaudi graduated from the Barcelona
Higher School of Architecture in 1878, he had
already begun using his skills as an architect.
In fact, Gaudi signed drawings for his first
building that same year, a projected community
for a worker’s organisation called La Obrera
Cooperativa Mataronense. Set up in the nearby
port city of Mataro in 1860, the organisation
became a co-operative in 1864.
From about 1877-1883, the co-operative
employed Gaudi to design its complete ideal
workers’ live-work community. Salvador
Pages, the instigator of the co-operative and
later a leader in the co-operative movement in
Catalonia, wanted a co-operative community
that unified the textile workers together in
their 36 on-site homes, communal spaces and
industrial workshops. Gaudi knew the purpose
of these buildings was intended to magnify the
lofty linkages of labour and life.
Of Gaudi’s plans for the co-operative
community, only two houses, the caretaker’s
office, the restrooms, the chimney and the
parabolic arched bleaching warehouse
46 | OCTOBER 2022