Antonio Gaudi

Barcelona's great architect, Antonio Gaudi, changed the face of his city. Facing discrimination and hardships as a child he had achieved goals that none could ever dream of. Architecture with inspiration from the natural world, he had created his own style of gothic architecture. He has created buildings of such elegance and allure only captured by mother nature herself. Curves, angles and images one would be fooled to think were living things, this amazing architect has designed with such care as to fool the critical human eye. The beauty of his achievements evokes appreciation for the real world and admiration of his genius.

Antonio Plàcid Guillem Gaudí Cornet was born on June 25, 1852, in the province of Tarragona. His father, Francesc Gaudí Serra, was a coppersmith and his mother, Antonia Cornet Bertran was the daughter of a coppersmith from Reus. As a child Gaudi suffered from rheumatism. Because of this he could’t go for long walks, which caused him to stay close to home. The fact that he was always close to home gave him much free time, which he used to observe nature and its design. Some believe that because of his exposure to these ideas it had been a major factor in his greatest qualities: observation and the analysis of nature.

Gaudi developed his thought by looking through medieval book, gothic art, illustrations of native structures and observing nature and its form. In the beginning of the Nineteenth Century came the arrival of the Arte Nouveau which broke the straight line and sharpness of the previous. Gaudi wasn't against this adjustment and created his own style. The idea that ornament was the origin of architecture stated by John Ruskin greatly influenced him. When he had first started to develop his style he was greatly influenced by Viollet-le-Duc's book on medieval French architecture from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. Also, my books written by William Morris.

As he grew older he had less care for his appearance. He didn't conform with societies demands and dressed without much care. In fact, when he had died after being run over by a tram, no one had recognized him. The driver didn't want to take a poor old man to the hospital, which resulted in a fine. Gaudi did not like to be in the public eye, he didn't speak with journalists and avoided cameras. Thus there are very few photographs of this great architect. He had died at the age of 74 (June 12, 1926). He was well respected in his home of Barcelona, half of the city dressed in black to give homage to this man who had become popular even though not many had ever met him. He was buried in the crypt of the Sagrada Famillia which he had spent the last 43 year as of his life though he did not live enough to see his work completed.