“In all the works of the great Gaudi, what happened was that no one liked them, nor was there anyone who dared to say it to his face, because he had a style that asserted itself without pleasing.”
Gaudi was often critisised for his work on the Sagrada Familia, because he took such a time with it. It is still being completed today, 72 years after his death. This obsessive attention to detail and perfection annoyed those wanting to see the Sagrada Familia completed. The Sagrada Familia was for the congregation of Saint Joseph, and initially designed in a neo-gothic style by architect Francisco de Paula del Villar. The building was started in 1882, the first stone put in place on 19th March-the day of Saint Joseph. Villar resigned a year later, after arguments with the committee, whose director Joan Martorell Montells recommended that Gaudi, aged 31 at the time, take over charge of the construction. Unlike Villar’s neo-gothic project, Gaudi imagined a church with many technical innovations, with a Latin cross superimposed over the initial crypt. Above it, the main altar was dedicated to Passion, and the Birth, and the principle façade to Glory. Above each façade, were 12 towers of 4 designs, representing the apostles, and a central one symbolising Christ, around which 4 more are dedicated to the evangelists and one the virgin. When Gaudi died after being run over by a tram, he was buried in the crypt where he had spent the last years of his life. The construction of the Sagrada Familia continues due to donations from people all around the world wanting to see the impressive temple in completion.
The Colonia Guell is one of Gouda’s most original and interesting works, and this project also remains incompleted. Construction began in 1908, but when Count Guell died in 1914, the project was abandoned. The assignment was to create a housing development for a small settlement of workers next to Susebi Guell’s Textile factory in Santa Coloma de Cervello, which is 20km from Barcelona. An inspired Gaudi designed a complex settlement with constant references to nature. Gaudi’s plan was to use organic forms and a studied polychrome so that the dark tones of the trees and transformed into blue and white in order to blend with the sky and clouds. For Gaudi, this special chromatic plan represented nature and also symbolized at a deeper level the path of the Christian life. Even though there are finished outlines, sketches, and even a model of the construction Gaudi was only able to build the Crypt, which can be considered as a small fragment of a majestic project. The crypt is a complex and perfect skeleton made out of brick, stone, and blocks of basalt. Its floor plan has the shape of a star, made possible by the inclination of the exterior walls. Since the crypt is covered by a vault walled up with long, thin, bricks on ribs of brick, it looks like the shell of a toroise from the exterior. Inside it appears more like the enormous twisted skeleton of a snake. Four columns of basalt are at the entrance.
Gaudi remains a strong influence on today’s architecture, and his buildings are a reminder of his greatness.