Antonio Gaudi

Gaudí's first works were designed in the style of gothic architecture (in worship of god) and traditional Catalan architectural modes, but he soon developed his own unique sculptural style. French architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, who promoted an evolved form of gothic architecturewas a major influence on Gaudí. The student went on to contrive highly original designs – irregular and fantastically intricate. Some of his greatest works, most notably La Sagrada Família, have an almost hallucinatory power.

<----------- La Sagrada Família

Gaudí studied for ten years to form the design of La Sagrada Família and to develop a new method of structural calculation based on a model built with cords and small sacks of lead shot. The basic scematics of the church was traced on a wooden board (1:10 scale), which was then placed on the ceiling of a small house next to the work site. Cords were hung from the points where columns were to be placed. The sacks of pellets weighing in at about one ten-thousandth part of the weight the arches would to support, were hung from each catenaric arch formed by the cords. Photos were then taken of the resulting model from all different angles. When the photos were turned upside-down, the lines of tension formed by the cords and weights revealed the lines of pressure of the compressed structure. This is one of the ways that Gaudí obtained natural forms in his work.

The same expressive power of Gaudí's monumental works is presented in his oddly graceful chairs and tables. Gaudí's architecture is a total integration of materials, processes and poetics. His approach to furniture design exceeded structural expression and continued with the overall architectural idea.

Viewing some of Gaudi's work one can conclude that his work also had a very enviromental/ organic feel to it, this was because Gaudi had a huge apperication for Art Nouveau. Gaudi did attend school he had periods where he had to miss lessons due to the rheumatic illness and so would use this time to observe plants and animals. It is these organic shapes of nature that became prolific in his later architectural works. Gaudi also used a lot of colourful tiles within his work, this was also linked back to the organic feel.

Gaudi Tile Lizard at the park ------------------->

In 1868 Gaudi moved to Barcelona in order to study architecture at university. Gaudi also took classes on Aesthetics, history, philosophy and economics. He had a strong belief that the various architectural styles did not necessarily depend on the aesthetic ideas but instead were heavily influenced by political and social affairs. Gaudi had a strong belief that the different architectural styles did not necessarily rely on the aesthetic ideas but instead were heavily influenced by political and social affairs.