With them he made his first designs, rejerías or street lamps very influenced by the crafts. Not surprisingly, Gaudí grew up listening to his father's hammer blows, a Riudoms boiler, very close to Reus.
His solo debut at the head of a great project was in the Cooperativa Obrera Mataénse (1882), a factory for which he even created his emblem. Thus he met the dressmaker Pepeta Moreu who would be lost in love. She rejected him and Gaudí took refuge at work and a deep religiosity that would be evident in the symbology of his entire work, sometimes interpreted as Masonic.
Dr / Corbis / Album
Dr / Corbis / Album
A life dedicated to trade
His delicate health forced him to embrace the vegetarian diet and to spend long seasons in the middle of nature, another of his mantras. His ascetic life contrasts with an exuberant imagination that was reflected through oriental and neo -Gothic touches until he reached his own style that transcends Catalan modernism itself.
The works by Antoni Gaudí They are best known The whim (1885) in Comillas; House ankle boots (1894) in León; and the Episcopal Palace of Astorga (1915). Most of its buildings are concentrated in Barcelona: VICENS HOUSE (1888), The College of Las Teresianas (1889), Calvet houses (1900), Batlló (1906) and Milà (1910), La Bellesguard Tower (1909) and, of course, the Sagrada Familiawhere it would be installed shortly before death (the temple, still unfinished, intends to inaugurate in 2026, coinciding with the centenary of his death).
Alamy Stock Photo / John Kellerman
For all of them, he thought to the last detail, from the Picaportes, to the soils, through some furniture obsessed with ergonomics. It was precisely a showcase shown in the Universal Exhibition of Paris that caught the attention of businessman Eusebio Güell, who would become his greatest patron.
For him he conceived some pavilions (1887), a palace (1890), some wineries in Sitges (1897) and the aforementioned Park Güell. On June 10, 1926, when Gaudí was aimed at praying to the church of San Felipe Neri, in Barcelona, he was hit by a tram in the Gran Vía de las Cortes Catalans. Time showed that Rogent's words were prophetic: Antoni Gaudí was a genius.
The death of this genius has cost the world a great loss; The art and architecture that came from their prodigious mind will never be repeated and that is why Gaudí's works have great meaning to the world.
Article originally published in AD Spain.