Today, the architecture of Antonio Gaudi y Cornet is known and admired throughout the world. Numerous books and articles have been devoted to the man and his extraordinary work. Exhibitions and seminars are always taking place to discuss the architectural phenomenon of Barcelona. Gaudi is, moreover, an architect esteemed not just by professionals, but is genuinely enjoyed and appreciated by the ordinary citizen.
Although established historians of architecture have written extensively about his work, a complete understanding of his style and method calls for a simple and direct explanation, and not one based either on aesthetic criteria or on principles of architectural history.
Unique Construction
Clearly the form of Gaudi's construction is different from those that through the centuries produced different artistic styles. Yet despite the large number of books and articles published on the subject, it is impossible to fully understand Gaudi. A study of him requires that additional resources be explored, using methods other than those of historiography and aesthetics.
None of Gaudi's family had ever worked as either architects or masons. His ancestors, up to the fifth generation, were craftsmen, owners of a coppermaking shop where stills were made for distilling alcohol from the grapes of the Campa de Tarragona vineyards, home of the Gaudi Vineyards, home of the Gaudis.
In his childhood and adolescence Gaudi knew and deeply loved the countryside and the light of his native region, the Alto Campa de Tarragona, very like that of the whole Mediterranean area. The land where Gaudi grew up is dry and rocky, with an abundance of grapevines and hazelnut, almond, carob, and olive trees. The stones littering the fields are used by the peasants for walls and rough vineyard sheds. The light in the region is of a singular intensity. Being so near to the sea, there are always winds blowing off the water. Fierce, short-lived storms suddenly blow up, displaying spectacular lightning and thunder.
A rheumatic illness afflicted the young Antonio Gaudi and prevented him from joining in the rough-and-tumble games of his friends. He spent many summer hours in the Mas de la Calderera, a small house owned by his family in the town of Riudoms. There, he devoted much of his time to a painstaking study of flowers, plants, insects, and rocks.
His eves were an intense blue, and, according to a study by a prominent Barcelona ophthalmologist, he could see near objects in great detail with one eye, while with the other he could see far into the distance with great clarity. He never had to wear glasses - his vision was always perfect.
Having the time and the ability to observe things in his environment, he gradually came to perceive the forms, colors, and structures of plants and animals, whose forms he compared with those his father made hammering copper in the workshop. Gaudi was a devoted student of nature, but as an amateur zoologist or botanist, rather than as a builder of three-dimensional structures. Thus he came to learn architecture before he even knew that architecture existed as a science or an
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