ANTONI GAUDI

A Brief Study
 The Architect

 Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) was born in the Spanish region of

Catalonia, located in the north-eastern edge of the country along the
Mediterranean coast. As a boy, young Gaudi watched his father and
grandfather make boilers, which required working with space and
volume and manipulating materials like metal which influenced his
future style.
 Antoni Gaudí was an architect and visionary of his time. He was
truly a genius when the subject was art and creating something “out
of the box”. His works combine a beautiful aesthetic with the
roughness of materials.
Early Life and Education

 Antoni Gaudi was the son of a coppersmith, who took to architecture at

an early age.
 He was a sickly child and forced to rest often, so he spent a lot of time
thinking about building things and creating unique drawings. Gaudi loved
the forms found in nature and was obsessed with geometry. All of these
elements played important roles in his work.
He was part of the Catalan Modernista movement, which he eventually
developed upon to his own unique nature based organic style.
Antoni Gaudí left his hometown of Reus at the age of 16 to join the
school of architecture in Barcelona, the main city of Catalonia at the time,
where there was a large anarchist independence movement.
 He wasn’t always a good or consistent student and didn’t hide his
disdain for learning about established architectural practices. But he did
graduate, having already demonstrated strokes of brilliance.
 He graduated from the Provincial School of Architecture in
1878.
 Gaudí’s love for Catalonia is reflected through his use of
major influences such as Mauresque, oriental, and gothic
architecture, all of them traditional Catalonian styles.
 Antoni Gaudí did not travel around Europe.
 However, he was acquainted with French Avant-Garde
movements thanks to the close relationships that existed
between Barcelona and France.
 Upon graduation, Gaudi worked in the artistic vein of his
Victorian predecessors, but soon developed his own style,
composing his works with juxtaposition of geometric
compositions of geometric masses and animating the
surfaces with patterned brick or stone, bright ceramic tiles
and floral or reptilian metalwork.
A Professional Timeline

 During his early period, at the Paris World Fair, 1878, Gaudi displayed a showcase which had
impressed one patron enough to lead to Gaudi’s work on the Guell Estate and Guell Palace, among
others. Him being industrialist Eusebi Guell, who commissioned many works from him and
became his biggest patron.
 Park Guell, a garden and public park with architectural features in Barcelona’s Gracia District
(1900-1914). The park includes entrance buildings, elaborate plazas, grand staircases, and playful
touches like a colourful lizard that crawls along the space between a smaller set of stairs.
In 1883, Gaudi was charged with the construction of a
Barcelona Cathedral called Basilica i Temple Expiatori
de la Sagrada Familia (Basilica and Expiatory Church
of the Holy Family)
 The plans had already had been drawn up earlier and
construction had already begun, but Gaudi completely
changed the design, stamping it with his own
characteristic style.
 Gaudi soon experimented with the various
permutations of historic styles:
I. The Episcopal Palace (1887-93)
II. The Casa de los Botines (1892-94)
III. The Casa Calvet (1898-1904)
Of which, the former two were Gothic whereas
the latter was done in Baroque style.

THE EPISCOPAL PALACE

 Some of these commissions were the result of the 1888 World’s
Fair, at which Gaudi once again staged an impressive showcase.
 In the 1880s Barcelona was becoming an increasingly wealthy city
with a growing prosperous population - the perfect setting for the rise of
a new architectural style, of which Gaudi was a leader.
 Regarded as a Catalan Modernist, he was part of an art movement that
was an offshoot of European Art Nouveau. Both movements championed
new forms and materials for contemporary culture.
 After 1902, Gaudi’s designs began to defy conventional stylistic
classification, and created a type of structure known as equilibrated – it
could stand on its own without internal bracing and external buttressing.
 The primary functional elements included columns tilting to employ
diagonal thrusts and lightweight tile vaults. . The floors were structured
like clusters of tire lily pads.
 This style was employed by him in the two
Barcelona apartment buildings:
I. Casa Batlo (1904-1906)
II. Casa Mila (1905-1910)
The examples of characteristic Gaudi style.
 Casa Mila is an apartment building that has no
truly straight lines. Case Mila’s curving lines and
twisting shapes give it an almost fairy tale look.

CASA MILA
THE INTERIOR OF CASA MILA
Style and Design Philosophy

 Gaudi possessed an incredible love for nature:

animals and plants. This, and religion, greatly
influenced each one of his designs.
 Gaudi's style is best described as free-flowing, full of
curving organic forms that are colourful and
exuberant. His works contain shapes that come from
nature but move into the realm of the imaginary,
containing echoes of recognizable forms and creatures
-- parts of trees and branches, lizards and bones.
 His style reflected his personality through the
imaginative shapes, fantastic forms and wild colour
combinations combined with an innovative, daring and
functional approach.
 He often used colourful, undulating tile work in a method called trencadis, a
Catalan word meaning broken or cracked. His lizard in Park Guell is a good example
of this technique. In trencadis, broken pieces of ceramics were recycled and used as
mosaic pieces to cover surfaces with colourful decorative patterns.
 Each of his most characteristic mediums – wood, wrought iron, ceramics, and
stained glass – are seamlessly intertwined to tell a story of life, death, and the faith in
between.
 Gaudí was greatly influenced by Art-Nouveau. This, resulted in the architect’s experimentation with new
materials and new shapes. This period of architectural stimulation was paramount in helping him to give up
imitating more historical styles, paving way to his own.
The materials used by Gaudí are also characteristic of his style. They ranged from stone to ceramics to tiles, from
wrought iron to glass and bricks.
 Gaudí’s work is usually classified as a modernist due to his eagerness to renew without breaking
tradition, the pursuit of modernity, and the ornamental sense applied to works. This also adds a dose of
Baroque and adopting technical advances along with its inspiration in nature and the unique touch of his works.
But it’s in the details where Gaudí’s architecture truly shines. Gaudi’s attention to detail was unsurpassed.
 Gaudí was constantly inventing creative solutions.
 His study of nature translated into use of ruled geometric forms like hyperbolic parabolid, hyperboloid, the
helicoids and the cone. He evolved from plane to spatial geometry to ruled geometry.
 He also extensively used the catenary curve as a mechanical element in his works, pushing its use beyond just
bridges.
 While Gaudi’s work certainly fits with others of the movement, he
also used unique styles and techniques compared to other architects of
the style. He designed buildings that seemed to manipulate nature-
based forms to create flowing, extravagant structures.
Prominent Works of The Architect

I. The Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

II. La Pedrera Or Casa Mila , Barcelona, Spain
III. Park Guell, Barcelona, Spain
IV. Casa Batllo Or The “House Of Bones”, Barcelona, Spain
V. Church Of Colonia Guell, Barcelona, Spain
VI. Episcopal Palace Of Astorga, Leon, Spain
VII.Guell Palace, Barcelona, Spain
VIII. Casa De Los Botines, Leon, Spain
IX. Casa Calvet, Barcelona, Spain
X. Casa Vicens, Barcelona Spain
XI. Torre Bellesguard, Barcelona, Spain
XII.Colegio Teresiano De Barcelona
XIII.The Pavilions At Finca Guell, Barcelona THE INTERIOR OF GUELL PALACE
XIV.El Capricho, Comillas, Cantabaria, Spain
XV.Restoration Of Palma De Mallorca Cathedral, Barcelona
CHURCH OF COLONIA GUELL, BARCELONA,
SPAIN
 This extraordinary piece of architecture is instantly recognisable the work of Antoni Gaudi and is one of his few
religious buildings.
 Gaudi’s signature styles of dreamy angles is alive and well in The Church Of Colonia Guell and for many it will
remind them of some of the cubist paintings of Pablo Picasso.
 It is an unfinished building featuring tremendous structural experimentation. He researched and made an
innovative architectural projection device, a large polyfunicular model constructed using fabric, cord and small
weights.
 When the work stopped in 1915, only the crypt was completed.
• The complex structure combines Catalan religious architecture with a variety of innovative
techniques and architectural patterns characteristic to his brilliant , whimsical designs.
• When approaching the building, one can only perceive one single flat surface; the roof of the crypt,
which has the plan of the un-built church drawn into it.
• Its flatness accentuates the fluid form of the volume underneath.
• This project boasts a striking comfortable relationship with nature, all the while being a platform of
experimentation for Gaudi.
The form of the building is anything but
traditional.
The crypt is magnificently articulated, changes
in the material carefully calculated and light
sensitivity controlled.
Different bricks and stones are used for the
structure, meeting at carefully detailed joints.
 the use of bright colours is to be found in all
of this architect’s work and in this case, it is
through a series of stunning stained glass
windows.
 Notable features include use of ruled
geometry and the variety and provenance of the
many and varied materials used and re-used by
Gaudi in the early phase of this church. The
textures, colours of basalt, limestone, brick,
slag, ceramic glass and wrought iron are seen.
 Brick and mosaics dominated the structure,
used in an extraordinary way.
 He always considered the flow of light as an
essential ingredient towards creating the feeling
of space and calm.
CASA BATLLO , BARCELONA, SPAIN
 This apartment complex is the extension and
renovation of a housing estate between Mediators,
commissioned by Joseph Batllo Casanovas.
 Its is also popularly known as The House Of Bones,
The House Of Masks, The House Of The Beards or
The House Of The Dragon.
 This work is part of the stage of maximum
constructive maturity of Gaudi.
 Gaudi’s intervention in this building was not only
ornamental but also structural, as it reconstructs the
exterior and back facades and the inner courtyards of a
building characteristic, with the aim of entering more
natural light into the building.
Gaudi explored his interests in flowing shapes and
colours in The Casa Batllo as a jolting contradiction to
the rigid forms that surround it.
 The creaturesque appearance is made strikingly
apparent at night with dramatic shadows of the bone-
like skeletal structures..
Gaudi was primarily assisted by textile manufacturer,
Joseph Maria Jujol, in the ornamentation and use of
colour on the surface treatments.
 Gaudi reveals The Batllo House as one of his
most poetic and artistic designs for a building.
With his synthesis of animal shapes, vine-like
curves, hints of bones and skeletons as well as
the use of lustrous colours in bits of glazed
ceramic and glass.
 The front facade reveals striking textures,
colours and imagery that work together to
conjure thoughts of fairytales and phantasmal
dreams.
 The religious imagery, a character trait of
Gaudi’s style, is achieved almost subliminally.
 There are embedded and semi-coloured
religious images and texts in the upper levels of
the building as well as the facade.
 The four pointed transverse cross sits at the
top of the building and is the signature piece.
The larger sculptural pieces that create the
boundaries of the balconies and that frame the
entrance resemble bones, suggesting a septum,
eyebrows or clavicles, which keep the anthropometric
tone.
 The top of The Casa Batllo is dominated by the
reptilian surface of the roof.
 The dramatic humpback mound is clad on one side
by amour plating resembling an armadillo’s.
 While the other side is covered with trancedis
fragments producing a subtle white into orange
sheen.
 The spine is dotted with bulbous green and blue
vertebrae, while the flowing line where roof meets
facade are edged with other armatures of saurian
bone and joint.
 The wonderful swirl of curving windows and
balconies, colourful trencadis mosaics, and open
rounded window panes, some made of stained glass.
 As an artist and believer in all encompassing design, the intesity and
materiality is not left to the exterior alone; with the interior being
perhaps even more detailed and designed, a continuation of the sinuous
flowing walls and edges as well as colour manipulation and incredible
varying of scale.
 The interior is just as alive as the facade; the knobbly spine lines
the staircases through flowing wall forms of scale-like surfaces.
 The winding and twisting exhibited in the decorative features of
doors, frames, peepholes, mouldings screens are all interpretations
of natural forms and the Art Noveau style.
 Gaudi used the central heating system, uncommon in the time
and place of Barcelona, making air vents and chimneys necessary.
 one of the most intriguing aspects of these chimneys are their 45
degree departure from the roof before they become vertical.
 fin
By
Parul Uday
BARCH/10006/19
Semester 3
Contemporary Architecture
Architecture Department, B.I.T. Mesra