Antonio Gaudi, by George R. Collins

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Re: Antonio Gaudi, by George R. Collins

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NOTES TO THE TEXT

1. Such ideas run through Gaudi's discussions of architectural theory. For him even structural forms carried an iconographic meaning, as we observe in his likening of his favorite geometrical surface--the hyperbolic paraboloid--to the Holy Trinity. In speaking to a group of engineering students at the Sagrada Famlia church in 1915, he pointed out that the hyperbolic paraboloid is generated by one straight line moving over two others, and maintained that the latter two represent the Father and Son, the moving line being the Holy Spirit which establishes communication between Father and Son (Diario de Barcelona, 9 Feb. 1915).

2. See note 82 below, especially Martinell, op. cit., passim.

3. All the major books on Gaudi have dealt with this, and in particular two essays: F. Xavier Amoros i Sola, Presencia de Reus en l'obra de Gaudi [Reus, 1952]; Cesar Martinell, La raiz reusense en la obra de Gaudi [Reus, 1952].

4. The genealogy of the Gaudi family, going back to a merchant of Auvergne in the early seventeenth century, can be found in Bergos 1954, pp. 13014, 167. Further details are in El Mati (Barcelona), 21 June 1936, p. 8; Diario Espanol (Tarragona), 25 Sept. 1951; and Destino (Barcelona), 2 August 1952, p. 10.

5. This has been a matter of considerable speculation to his biographers, since Gaudi was prone to discourse on the virtues of married life to his young assistants. There are guarded references to a balked romance, and in "Elogio Preliminar" his friend the writer Maragall wove such a tale about an architect who is presumed to be Gaudi (the writer's son Jordi Maragall confirms this).

Gaudi has been likened to Michelangelo in this respect.

6. Much of our information about Gaudi's youth in Reus comes from his companion Eduardo Toda, who was interviewed by Gaudi's biographers (e.g., "Recuerdos de la infancia y primera joventud de nuestro Gaudi" in Calendario 1929, pp. 15-18) and also wrote his own recollections, "Records d'Antoni Gaudi a Reus, fins l'any 1870," El Mati (Barcelona) 21 June 1936, pp. 1-2.

7. Although the Academy in Madrid had been giving degrees for architecture for a long time, Barcelona employed the title of maestro de obras as awarded by the School of Industrial Arts in the Lonja of Barcelona. In 1869 the Escuela Superior de Arquietectura was established in the Lonja, and during Gaudi's student days it was moved to the new University which was being built by Elias Rogent, first director of the school.

8. His grades in his various schools are reported in Rafols 1952, p. 187-89, and in Bergos 1954, pp. 15-18, 168. Both authors relate incidents that arose between Gaudi and his instructors. That his attention occasionally wandered is attested to by a page of his Surveying class notes in the Reus Museum that is covered with "doodles," including a rather fine study for a capital (fig. 20).

9. La Obrera Mataronense (see Chronol. 1878-82) was one of a number of workers' cooperatives that sprang up in Catalonia from mid-century, apparently independent of the English cooperative movement. An idealistic enterprise, it underwent great difficulty, but by the 1870s had obtained a measure of success. Its early years are described interestingly by Joaquin M. Bartrina, 'La Sociedad Cooperativa Mataronense," in Obras en prosa y verso (Barcelona and Madrid: Texido y Parera, 1881) pp. 219-58. At the time of World War I it was bought out by an individual proprietor; its buildings are still in use.

10. For an informative discussion of the political situation in which Gaudi was immersed in Catalonia see Gerald Brenan, The Spanish Labyrinth (Cambridge: the University press, 1950) pp. 24 ff. The account is well documented, and there is a general bibliography on pp. 348-9.

11. Calendario 1927, p. 27; and Martinell, Gaudi i la Sagrada Familia, p. 165, n. 43.

12. Sebastian Kneipp (1821-97), a German monk, devised the system to overcome his own youthful infirmities. In 1881 he established a curative center in Worishofen, publishing books that went through many editions. They were translated into Spanish, and his system seems to have achieved great popularity in the Peninsula.

Gaudi's frugal diet is often described (e.g., "Parlant amb el capella custodi del Temple de la Sagrada FAmilia, Mossen Gil Pares," Catalunya Social VI, 19 June 1926, pp. 3-4), and his extreme Lenten fasting was the subject of an article by Ricardo Opisso in Diario de Barcelona, 24 March 1951.

13. It should be noted here, because it coincided more or less with his withdrawal from commercial practice, that in 1911 he almost succumbed to an attack of undulant fever and retired to the Pyrenees with his physician and friend Dr. Pedro Santalo to convalesce. This episode is always emphasized by his biographers.

14. Being dependent on alms exclusively for support, the works of the Sagrada Famlia church were in constant crisis. One such occurred in 1905, at which time the Catalan writer Juan Maragall composed a series of pieces for the press of Barcelona, one of which, "Una gracia de caritat" (Diario de Barcelona, 7 Nov. 1905), suggested that Gaudi "go out into the street at midday with hat in hand, asking of all alms for the church." It later became Gaudi's practice to do so. However, Gaudi himself was poor only because he had distributed his own wealth and inheritances to the Catholic church on the one hand, and to the Mancomunidad of Catalonia on the other, the latter being an act of outright Catalanism (Calendario 1927, p. 27).

15. We know something of his library. Among his basic religious texts were Ano cristiano; Misal romano; Ceremonial de obispos; Proper L.P. Gueranger, Annee liturgique; and Thomas a Kempis (according to Puig Boada, S.F. 1929, p. 101, and Diario de Barcelona, 24 March 1951. p. 17.

Regarding secular books, Rafols tells us (1929, p. 32) that he had read the following treatises on social problems: A. Bock, Economie politique des Atheniens; L. M. Moreau-Christophe, Du probleme de la misere; and E. Lavasseur, Histoire des classes ouvrieres en France. (I am indebted to John N. Waddell, Columbia University reference librarian, for verifying these items.)

Architecturally, Viollet-le-Duc was his bible; one of his few trips outside Catalonia took him to Carcassonne where he was flattered to be mistaken for Viollet-le-Duc himself when he was examining the reconstruction (Rafols 1929, p. 22). Gaudi of course owned art books and periodicals.

Philosophically he is supposed to have been strongly influenced by his collections of Greek classics (Rafols 1929, p. 220), Goethe (Paul Linder in Mar del Sur, Lima, March-April 1950, passim), and Shakespeare (Arturo Llopis in Templo, LXXXVI, October 1951, p. 8).

16. To these important Catalan clerics should be added Father de Osso, founder of the Teresianas, the Bishop Morgades and the Cardinal Casanas of Barcelona and the Jesuit Ignacio Casanovas. Although a layman, Jose M. Bocabella, co-founder of the association responsible for the Sagrada Familia church, also had a spiritual influence on Gaudi.

17. Among articles attributing saintly virtues to Gaudi one might list: Manuel Trens, "L'arquitect de Deu," La Publicitat (Barcelona) 11 June 1926; Jose M. Gich, "Era un sant ...!," Catalunya Social VI (19 June 1926); J. Marti Matleu, "Un cristiano exemplar: Don Antonio Gaudi," Almanaque de las conferencias de San Vicente de Paul (Barcelona: Ormiga, 1927), pp. 82-86; and Octavio Saltor, "Vida para Dios: Antonio Gaudi, arquitecto del Senor," San Jose Oriol, IX Barcelona (May 1956)

18. I. Buckmann, "Antoni Gaudi: Ein pathographischer Versuch, zugleich ein Beitrag zur Genese des Genieruhms, Zeit. f. d. gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie, CXXXIX (1932), pp. 133-157. Actually this is little more than an enumeration of the well-known events of Gaudi's life plus a few hackneyed efforts to point up psychoses in his behavior. The weaknesses of the analysis were the subject of an entertaining review by Oliver Brachfeld, "Una patografia d'Antoni Gaudi," in Mirador, Barcelona (6 April 1933).

19. The quantity of newspaper and magazine articles dedicated to or provoked by the death and burial of Gaudi is so large that they cannot be enumerated here. An almost hour-by-hour chronicle of the events is to be found in the special number of El Propagador for 1 and 15 July 1926. An anthology of short literary pieces that appeared in the Catalan press was collected in Antoni Gaudi: La seva vida. Informative full-page spreads describing the funeral were printed in the Barcelona papers from 13 to 15 June. Important necrologies appeared outside of Catalonia in at least six papers of Madrid, in Milan, Paris, etc.

20. Illustrated in Rafols 1929, pp. 14-19.

21. A camarin is a combination of chapel and dressing room for a cult image (especially for the Virgin) situated behind the altar and usually visible through it.

Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano (1828?-1901) was a Murcian active in Barcelona. It may have been through his work with this Gothicizing architect at Montserrat that Gaudi made the contacts that later provided him with so much ecclesiastical building. In his diary (lost) Gaudi claimed credit for the Montserrat design, and later he replaced del Villar as architect of the Sagrada Familia church. According to Anuario 1927, p. 58, the elder del Villar was aided in both these projects by his son Francisco de Paula del Villar y Carmona (1860-1926). Del Villar padre is the subject of an informative obituary in Anuario 1903, pp. 443-46.

22. Jose Fontsere Mestre (died 1897), maestro de obras, had won the competition for the construction of a public park on the site of the Citadel of Barcelona. This hated symbol of the authority of Castille over Catalonia had been almost entirely razed in 1841 and 1868, like the fortifications of many other European cities that had outgrown their old defensive boundaries. Gaudi, still a student, worked out the hydraulic calculations for the Cascade so cleverly that he was given credit for the corresponding course at the School of Architecture, although he had neglected to attend the lectures.

23. In Gaudi's papers. See Rafols 1929, p. 18, and J. M. Garrut in Diario de Barcelona, 5 Sept. 1959, p. 40.

24. Juan Martorell y Montells (1833-1906). His works, principally churches, are too many to list here, but certain of his projects had a direct bearing on Gaudi's career. Gaudi and Domenech y Montaner as young assistants helped him in the controversy over the Cathedral facade (see Chronol. 1882, and fig. 25), and it was Martorell who recommended Gaudi as new architect of the Sagrada Familia church. He was apparently assisted by Gaudi with the beginnings of the monastery and church of the Salesas (finished 1885) on the paseo de San Juan in Barcelona. Here occurred a mutual influence. Gaudi is considered to have used the Salesas interior as a point of departure for certain church projects of his own, while Martorell was probably influenced by Gaudi in employing a polychrome tile and rubble exterior for the Salesas. But perhaps the most fruitful interrelationship came in connection with the group of Catalan-style buildings constructed at Comillas (near Santander) for the Marqueses of Comillas. The first Marques (see note 27) commissioned a large neo-Gothic palace which Martorell carried out between 1878-90 (fig. 21). Beside this, and to have been attached to it by an arcade, Martorell constructed a pantheon-chapel, for which Gaudi was asked to design the future (plate 96, plate 97, plate 98 and plate 99). In 1883 Martorell started the huge Pontifical Seminary nearby for the Marques, a work that was finished by Domenech y Montaner. Meanwhile, in 1883-85 next to the chapel, Gaudi designed "El Capricho" for the family (plate 1, plate 13, plate 14). These buildings, along with a cemetery and some monuments about the town, form a veritable museum of Catalan Renaixenca architecture of 1875-90. A number of the works of Martorell are illustrated in Rogent Arquitectura and in Album Renaixensa.

25. The career of Luis Domenech y Montaner (1850-1923) paralleled Gaudi's in many ways besides the dates of their lives and the points of contact that have already been enumerated. He was an ardent Catalanist, taking an active political role. His early style of architecture was a medieval revivalism exemplified by the Exposition restaurant of 1888 (now a museum). He shared Gaudi's delight in lush polychromatic effects in brick and vitreous materials, and he produced some of the great monuments of Catalonia's Modernismo period, e.g., the Palacio de la Musica Catalan (1891-1908) built to house the musical society "Orfeo Catala." The extravagance of this building, inside and out, is indescribable in words--with its many-colored ceramics and mosaics, its transparent glass colonnettes, its flying horses of plaster and its stained glass skylight. However, Domenech was of a more practical disposition than Gaudi. He built in the mode of the time rather than fighting it, and he had the persistence to carry out a number of large institutional commissions such as hospitals and hotels. He was also known as a writer and editor of works on art. His buildings are illustrated in Rogent Arquitectura, Album Renaixensa, Cirici Modernista. For biographical details see his obituary in Anuario 1924, pp. 117-21.

26. Elias Rogent Amat (1821-1897) stimulated the revival of medieval styles, crafts and manners in Catalonia through his archaeological studies and other writings; by his reconstruction of medieval buildings such as the Monastery of Ripoll; and through his position as a teacher. Such a building as the new University of Barcelona which he began in 1859 in the Romanesque vein was, of course, influential. He was an impressive lecturer and was accustomed to deliver scholarly addresses during the collective visits of the Association of Architects to Catalonia's ancient sites. Gaudi regularly attended these excursions and must have been much impressed by that of 27 June 1880 in which Rogent, talking about his favorite site San Cugat del Valles, stressed the political and social basis of the Middle Ages as a way of life. (Elias Rogent, San Cugat del Valles, 2nd ed. [Barcelona: Lopez Robert, 1880], Gaudi listed as present on p. 5). Rogent's buildings will be found illustrated in his son's book, Arquitectura Moderna, and in B. Bassegoda y Amigo, El arquitecto Elias Rogent (Barcelonia: Farre y Asensio, 1929).

27. This chapel was constructed by Martorell (see note 24) as a burial place for the family and descendents of Antonio Lopez y Lopez (1817-83), first Marques of Comillas. The Marques was a self-made man and a perfect example of the new nineteenth-century aristocracy of Spain. As a youth he had emigrated from Comillas to Andalusia to Cuba to Barcelona, parlaying his small earnings into the Compania Trasatlantica (Spain's biggest shipping line), a tobacco monopoly, banks and a variety of other enterprises. He was ennobled by Alfonso XII in 1878. He and his son Claudio, the second Marques, played an important role in Barcelona life and patronized such Catalan artists as Martorell, Gaudi, Domenech y Montaner, the sculptors Vallmitjana, Llimona, etc. The seminary that they had erected facing their palace in Comillas was turned over to the Vatican in what appears to have been a politico-religious maneuver. The palace still contains a remarkable regional museum, although it was looted during the Civil War.

28. See note 9.

29. Besides Martorell and Domenech y Montaner, already mentioned, a pioneer in the new coloristic brick architecture was Jose Vilaseca y Casanovas (1848-1910), one-time collaborator with Domenech and a leading architect of the Renaixenca. He constructed the triumphal arch for the 1888 Exposition of Barcelona in such materials and is also known for his use of oriental motifs. The Catalans were toying with the same flat, floral Egyptian patterns that attracted Louis Sullivan. Vilaseca had a splendid open touring car decorated in the Egyptian style!

Vilaseca's buildings will be found illustrated in Rogent Arquitectura, Album Renaixensa and Cirici Modernista. His daughter-in-law, the Senora Escobedo Sanchez, has deposited a collection of his original drawings with the Columbia University archive.

30. (plate 11). Actually this detail is of a sketch of the fence around the corner on the Avenida Principe de Asturias, to which de Serra Martinez extended the enclosure in the reform of the 1920s. It is identical with Gaudi's original bit of iron fence and was apparently produced by the maker of the original, Juan Onos (see note 91).

31. Conversation with Juan Bautista de Serra Martinez 15 July 1959.

32. Illustrated in Rafols, 1929, p. 26. Later a quantity of building was done at Garraf for the Guells by Francisco Berenguer, Gaudi's closest associate. It consisted of an unusual stone building of triangular section which served as a residence, chapel and warehouse (fig. 22), and a gatehouse with brick and remarkable wrought iron work (fig. 23). Gaudi admired it (Salvador, Arquitecturai IX, 1927, p. 10), and it has been frequently mistaken for his own work.

33. Although he was usually fussy about the execution of each detail of his structures, Gaudi in this case sent the plans on and left their execution to the architect Cristobal Cascante, who supervised much of the Catalan work at Comillas. Apparently the building was never seen by Gaudi nor by most of his biographers, who frequently err in describing it. As it is so little known it might be worth observing that: (1) in the garden there is a small grotto with a ceiling of pendant rocks similar to those which Gaudi later employed in the galleries of the Park Guell (plate 71); and (2) the same tiles (obviously from Barcelona) had been used at the top corners of the verandah of the Casa Vicens (see plate 12). The ceramics that Domenech used for the seminary and its gateway at Comillas are also to be found decorating a number of buildings in Barcelona.

34. Gaudi's modifications to the Guell house were lost when that part of the estate was turned over by Juan Antonio Guell, son of Eusebio, to the royal family of Spain to make their residence in Barcelona. This appears to have been in accord with the centralist policies of the "Lliga," conservative Catalan party to which Gaudi and his patrons belonged. Of the walls that Gaudi constructed around the estate there exists now only an entrance gate, itself recently reconstructed by the University which occupies much of what was once the Guell estate.

35. This was worked out in great detail and with great beauty, according to his associates. Gaudi had apparently been prevented from preparing it immediately by the pressure of his work on the Sagrada Familia, the Guell palace, the Teresian school, the palace in Astorga, etc. Unfortunately the entire set of drawings was lost in 1936, and we have left only one photograph that had been made previously.

36. The modern cult of St. Joseph was developed under Popes Pius IX and Leo XIII. Pius encouraged his worship in 1847 and 1862, proclaimed him to be a patron of the universal church in 1870; Leo urged the formulation of a theology of Joseph in an encyclical of 1889, dealt with his importance to the family and the worker in his "Annum Sacrum" of 1899. In 1865 the Marist father Joseph Huguet of Saint Foy in Dijon had launched a periodical Propagateur de la devotion a Saint Joseph which came to Bocabella's attention. Worship of St. Joseph in the West started in late medieval times, had flourished in Santa Teresa's day (numbering eight monasteries in Catalonia), but had dwindled by the nineteenth century. Bocabella's association immediately won Papal approval, indulgences, apostolic benedictions, and in 1901 Pope Leo XIII began to return half of their annual donations to the Vatican in order to aid construction of the Sagrada Familia church.

For details of this movement in Spain consult El Dia Grafico (Barcelona), 19 Jan. 1915; Diario de Barcelona, 19 March 1915; El Universo (Madrid) 23 March 1915; La Vanguardia (Barcelona) 18 Jan. 1915, 2 Sept. 1921; Templo (April-May 1952) pp. 5-6, (Sept. 1954) pp. 6-11, (June 1955) pp. 2-11, (March 1959) pp. 10-11, Obra Mercedaria no. 41 (Jan.-March 1955), no. 47 (July-Sept. 1956).

Bocabella was a bookdealer, whose seventeenth-century establishment, Libreria Herederos de la Vda. Pla, still serves as headquarters for the Association and its church.

37. The simple structure illustrated here, apparently del Villar's first idea, was often reprinted in El Propagador. However, Rafols 1929, p. 42, shows a more sophisticated design by del Villar, seemingly the one he was carrying out when Gaudi took over from him.

38. A large collection of clippings of this nature is preserved in the archive of the Amigos de Gaudi of Barcelona.

39. Bocabella had said in 1881 on buying the terrain, "On this site will rise the sumptuous expiatory church of the Holy Family, surrounded by gardens for the recreation and enjoyment of children, and accompanied by Catholic schools and workshops with the object of uplifting those gangs of street urchins who wander about lost, and so to facilitate their moral and physical development" (La Vanguardia, 18 Jan. 1915). Gaudi described to a visitor the colony of artisans he envisaged clustered about his church, "from which will rise the noises of work, like the buzzing of bees, toward the sunlit church, a mystical hive ...," (Marquina in Art et les Artistes VI (1908) pp. 520-21). Schools for children were constructed on the site in 1909.

40. In "Una gracia de caritat," see note 14.

(Plate 6). The towers of the Sagrada Familia church are visible from nearly all of Gaudi's structures, although nowhere so neatly arranged as from the Casa Mila, his last building. There seems to be no question that Gaudi was so paying deference to the church which, as architecture, was to dominate Barcelona religiously, complementing the mountain tibidabo behind the city. The Tibidabo, whose name means literally "tibi dabo" ("to you I will give," Matt. 4:9), is believed to be the mountain on which the temptation of Christ took place.

41. Herman G. Scheffauer, "Barcelona Builds with Bold Fantasy," The New York Times Magazine (21 Nov. 1926), pp. 5, 17. Similar articles are to be found in the Illustrated London News for 17 Dec. 1927, 10 March 1928 and 23 Feb. 1929.

42. Bulleti del Centre Excursionista de Catalunya, XI (April 1901), p. 108.

43. Marquina, op. cit., p. 518.

44. Cf. Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonne de l'architecture francaise du XI au XVI siecle (Paris: Bance, 1854-68) V, pp. 472 ff, "Fleuron."

45. American Architect and Building News, Boston, XXXVII (9 July 1892), p. 27; Decorator and Furnisher, N.Y., XIX (1892), pp. 145-6, 217, 219. Gaudi's assistant Juan Matamala suggests that Americans became acquainted with the Palace through the delegation that visited the Exposition of 1888 in Barcelona. They were there to help dedicate the monument to Columbus at the foot of the Ramblas, near the Palacio Guell. Eusebio Guell's brother-in-law, the second Marques of Comillas was a director of the Exposition and undoubtedly showed Americans the richly-marbled rooms of the new palace under construction. The same furniture maker (Francisco Vidal) worked for Gaudi and for the American exhibit at the Exposition.

The only monograph on this building is a short one written by Joseph Puiggari for the Centre Excursionista de Catalunya in 1894: Monografia de la Casa palau y Museu del Excm. Sr. D. Eusebi Guell y Bacigalupi (Barcelona: "L'Avenc"). Informative articles have been published on the Palace by I. Puig Boada, in Cuadernos de Arquitectura (Nov. 1944) and by M. Baldrich and by L. Bonet Gari in San Jorge, Barcelona (July 1954).

46. In retaining Gaudi as his architect, Eusebio Guell y Bacigalupi (1846-1918) showed himself to be the most radical and open-handed Maecenas of the Catalan Renaixenca. No account books were kept between them, and Gaudi seems never to have lacked funds during Eusebio's lifetime. The Guell fortune had been established by Eusebio's father Juan Guell y Ferrer (1800-1872) who, like the first Marques of Comillas, rose from simple beginnings to a position of wealth in the Antilles. On his return to Catalonia he started spinning mills ("Vapor Vell") which exploited recent Catalan inventions; he invested in agriculture, became director of numerous financial enterprises. As a writer and a senator he fought for tariffs, against Castillian opposition, in order to protect the young Catalan industries. He married into a well-known Genoese family, Bacigalupi. Eusebio, a worthy son, administered a variety of enterprises, served in politics, was active in the Catalan movement and patronized the arts. Like his father, Eusebio spoke out on full production and protective tariffs to encourage Spanish industry and to raise the standard of living. By the development of his own suburban properties (Finca Guell, park Guell, etc.) Eusebio tried to direct the expansion of Barcelona into rational, modern form. He was made gentilhombre del Rey in 1884, count in 1910. Through marriage or by their own exploits (including heroism), the Guells came into more aristocratic titles than we can list, their relatives de Comillas and de Castelldosrius being also patrons of Gaudi.

The following may be consulted for biographical information on the family: Jose de Argullol y Serra, Biografia del Excmo. Sr. D. Juan Guell y Ferrer (Barcelona: Succesores de Ramirez, 1881); P. Miquel d'Esplugues, El Primer Comte de Guell (Barcelona: Poncell, 1921); P. Rodon i Amigo, Eusebi Guell industrial (Badalona: "Cataluna Textil," 1935); Pedro Gual Villalbi, Biografia de Eusebio Guell y Bacigalupi (Barcelona: Velez, 1953); Jose M. Pi y Suner, Gaudi y la Famlia Guell (Barcelona: Amigos de Gaudi, 1958).

47. Salvador, op cit., p. 16.

48. Useful articles on the Astorga palace include: Amos Salvador, "Gaudi (Impresion de viaje)," Pequenas monografias de arte, Madrid, I (Nov. 1907), pp. 1-4; Angel Salcedo Ruiz, "El Palacio Episcopal de Astorga," El Universo (Madrid) XV, 21 June 1914, p. 1; Luis Alonso Luengo, "Gaudi en Astorga," Revista (Barcelona) 16 Sept. 1953, p. 14, and 23 Sept. 1953, p. 8 (reprinted in pamphlet form in Astorga, 1954); Enric Casanelles, "Gaudi en Astorga," Distincion, Barcelona, no. 16 (Dec. 1957), pp. 69-71.

49. For bibliography on this building see note 110.

50. Gaudi respected the ancient ruins in several ways. The remaining walls he built into a type of terrace in front of the new house. And the access road (now called calle Bellesguard) was moved well away to the front, overhanging a gully. This necessitated the construction of a retaining wall and viaduct (fig. 24), which he made with inclined piers of rough stone work similar to those of the contemporary Park Guell. Curiously enough, this bit of engineering has passed unnoticed, never having been illustrated in connection with his works.
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Re: Antonio Gaudi, by George R. Collins

Postby admin » Tue Dec 11, 2018 12:23 am

Part 2 of 2

51. The Park Guell was to be a garden suburb, not a Garden City as has sometimes been suggested; it had none of the means of production that are basic to the latter. However, English Garden City theory was to gain a certain currency in Catalonia later, and Eusebio's son Juan Antonio became president of a civic society that promoted several Garden City developments in that part of Spain. This society discussed the Park Guell in the second number of its magazine Civitas (July 1914), praising it, but making clear that it was not a Garden City.

52. Drawing for the cross is illustrated in Rafols 1929, p. 142. The squarish stone crosses standing there today would hardly seem to be connected with Gaudi.

53. The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (New York: Dial Press, 1942), caption to plate IV.

54. Regarding Nature and Gaudi's architecture see Joaquin de Entrambasaguas, "Arquitectura y paisage de Gaudi" in Las manos de la Gioconda (Valencia: jeran, 1936), pp. 37-50; James Grady, "Nature and the Art Nouveau," the Art Bulletin, XXXVII, no. 3 (Sept. 1955), pp. 187-92; Rafael Benet, "El gust de Gaudi," La Veu de Catalunya, 11 June 1928. See also Madsen Sources pp. 164-87.

55. For the influence of Goethe in Catalonia see Udo Rukser, Goethe in der Hispanischen Welt (Stuttgart: Metzlersche, 1958) and Robert Pageard, Goethe en Espana (Madrid: Consejo Superior, 1958). Gaudi's friend Maragall was influenced by Goethe, translated his works into Catalan and was in great part responsible for his influence in Spain.

In Germany at about this time Rudolf Steiner, a Goethe scholar and occultist, was weaving Goethe's ideas on Nature into a theory of directly expressive architecture that has much in common with the effect of Gaudi's actual buildings.

56. Such as The Stones of Venice (London: Smith, Elder, 1851-53) II, chap. VI, paragraphs 67-71. Ruskin had been appreciated by the Renaixenca movement for some time and was being translated into Catalan over the year 1900.

57. The only study of the Park Guell is a brief, early one: Salvador Selles, "El Parque Guell: Memoria descriptiva," in Anuario 1903 (also published separately).

58. Not to be confused, as it often was, with the "Modernismo" reform movement in the Catholic church (condemned by Pius X in 1907), which applied historical and comparative methods to the study of religion. Such identification was made in an important contemporary lecture on the "sins" of Modernismo arquitectonico," Memorias de la Real Academia de Ciencias y Artes de Barcelona, X (March 1912), pp. 55-73. Another characteristically anti-Modernista contemporary view was presented by Lluis Maria Vidal, "Discurs del Senyor President," Buleti del Centre Excursionista de Catalunya, X (Feb. 1900), pp. 32-48.

59. The Calvet were also in the textile business, and this building was constructed in the part of Barcelona where such enterprises are concentrated. Its arrangement of storerooms in the basement and rear, offices on the ground floor, owner's apartment with terrace garden on the first floor and rented apartments above is typical.

Contemporary descriptions of the edifice were printed in Rogent Arquitectura: Anuario 1901, pp. 55-63; Hispania, Barcelona (15 Dec. 1901) pp. 439-41.

60. The large knocker on the outside door is one of Gaudi's weirdest bits of iron craft. The heavy open-work knocker, decorated with a cross, on falling strikes the back of a huge louse--undoubtedly illustrating some bit of local folklore. (Illustrated in Rafols 1929, p. 138).

61. Enrique Sagnier Villavecchia (1858-1931), one of Barcelona's most popular and prolific architects, was, perhaps, most representative of its Art Nouveau phase. He designed brilliantly in that style, but without great conviction, as witnessed by his abandonment of it when the fad had passed. He received many religious commissions, and in 1923 he was titled a Marques by Pope Pius XI.

Another distinctively Modernista architect was Jeronimo F. Granell Manresa. Both of these men are discussed at length in Cirici Modernista.

62. In Rogent Arquitectura, p. 151.

The Casa Calvet with its mixture of neo-Baroque and Art Nouveau recalls Horta's Tassel House in Brussels (1892-93), but is less epochal a building, being a conservative pause for Gaudi, while Horta was in a radical phase from which he later retreated.

63. Gaudi was never finicky like Domenech y Montaner or Puig y Cadafalch. His copiers, like Salvador Valeri (Casa Camalat, 442 Diagonal, Barcelona), apply Gaudi's forms as an ornament and never get the building itself into resonance with them. Elsewhere in Spain buildings popularly ascribed to Gaudi can be seen to be no more than a radical version of the Art Nouveau floral style: e.g., in Madrid the Palacio Florestan Aguilar (now Sociedad General de Autores de Espana), calle Fernando VI, no. 4; and in Bilbao the French Consulate bulding. Alameda de Recalde 34.

64. It is difficult to evaluate the rock-cut Rosary group designed for Montserrat (1904) in this development, owing to the poor quality of our surviving illustration (fig. 17). It was to be a shallow grotto excavated in the mountainside in a free and flowing way. The Blanes pulpits, of 1905(?), are hardly characteristic of his work of the time (plate 74).

65. Jose Puig y Cadafalch (1869-1956), esteemed Catalan scholar, statesman and architect, was one of the mainstays of the later phase of the Renaixenca. He is well known for his publications (Institut de'estudis catalans) on Romanesque architecture and particularly for his theory of the primacy of the Catalan Romanesque. He founded museums, initiated excavations at Ampurias and had time to serve in the Cortes and as president of the Mancomunidad of Catalonia. He designed many buildings in and around Barcelona, all of them rich in tile, ironwork and decorative sculpture, but tending to be derivative of the German Gothic and the Viennese Secession. His was the famous "Casa dels quatre gats" in the old center of Barcelona where the Catalan Modernistas met for beer and Picasso got his start. His works are illustrated in Cirici Modernista and in L'oeuvre de Puig y Cadafalch, architecte (Barcelona: Parera, 1904).

66. There exists no serious study of the Casa Batllo. However, Jorge Elias gives an amusing account of Gaudi's intransigent attitude toward his clients at that time in "Gaudi y la 'casa de los huesos'," Diario Espanol (Tarragona) 3 Jan. and 4 Feb. 1953.

67. Gaudi's great admirer, the Catalan writer Francesc Pujols, put this nicely: "The wind, the sun and the rain drawn out of heaven in answer to pleadings and prayers, working the stone at the command of Time, are the only ones who can compare with the stonemasons who roughen the stone at the command of Gaudi," in Revista Nova, Barcelona, I (23 May 1914), p. 3.

68. One feels that Gaudi's involvement in the wonders of Nature was understandable considering his many associations with the holy mountain of Montserrat, which paradoxically enough serves the Catalans as a center both for religious pilgrimage and for the sport of rock-climbing. The area is also rich in myths of magic rocks and of petrified giants and spirits.

69. Many of the rooms are laid with pale green floor tiles containing marine motifs, which Gaudi designed especially for the building and which are still stocked by their manufacturer in Barcelona.

70. This reaction was stimulated in great part by the writings of the Catalan Eugenio d'Ors, beginning with his essays of 1906. The way in which the classicism of the Greeks, which Gaudi always cited as his model, began to be used against him is cogently described by Jose Pla, "Gaudi: la Sagrada Famlia" in Grandes Tipos (Barcelona: Aedos, 1959), a rewrite of essays that had appeared in Destino (Barcelona) in Sept.-Oct. 1951.

71. Parisian press comments, puzzled but favorable, are extracted in Anuario 1911. Articles also appeared in Italy, Germany and Argentina as a result of the exhibition.

Although Gaudi's retirement of 1910 seems to have come about largely on his own initiative, other events overtook and isolated him by 1914. Probably linked in part to economic crisis brought on by World War I, his work at Mallorca ceased and the patronage of Guell at the Park and at the Colonia Guell was cut off. Eusebio Guell seems to have moved his personal residence from the Guell Palace to his large house (now a school) in the Park Guell, ostensibly for the comfort of his ailing son Claudio. Here he died in 1918 shortly after Claudio. It may be indicative of changed taste on his part that in June 1914 he celebrated the installation in this house of a room of the period of Louis XVI (La Veu de Catalunya, 25 June 1914). As regards the Sagrada Famlia, in 1914 its Junta was badly in debt and wished to suspend the works, Gaudi's only remaining commission. It was at this point that Gaudi and Bocabella's nephew decided to beg for funds. About four years later they received a large donation that permitted construction to continue. Meanwhile Gaudi had occupied himself with calculations and new designs (see Chronol. 1884).

72. At a meeting of the Junta reported in Diario de Barcelona, 24 Dec. 1914.

73. The work at Mallorca, which embraced a good deal of original decoration by Gaudi, has attracted little attention. In style no purist, he was as eager to preserve the Baroque as the medieval, if appropriate to the liturgy. Inventories and discussions of what he did at Mallorca are to be found in Rafols 1929, pp. 136-44; Bergos 1954, pp. 106-10; M. Rotger, Restauracion de la Catedral de Mallorca (Palma: Amengual, 1907); Miguel Alcover, "La Seo de Mallorca y su restauracion por D. Antonio Gaudi," Razon y Fe, Madrid (10 and 25 June 1928); G. Forteza, "Gaudi i la restauracio de la Seu de Mallorca," El Mati (Barcelona) 21 June 1936; Pedro Antonio Matheu, Guias de la Seo de Mallorca: la Capilla Real (Palma: Pons, 1954); Idem, Palma de Mallorca monumental (Madrid: Plus Ultra, 1958); A. Kerrigan, "Gaudi restaurador, o la historia de Cabrit y Bassa," Papeles de Son Armadans, Madrid & Palma, IV (Dec. 1959).

Gaudi did not touch the structure of the cathedral, but did study it, and his assistant there published a memoir on the subject: Juan Rubio Bellver, "Conferencia acerca de los conceptos organicos, mecanicos y constructivos de la Catedral de Mallorca," in Anuario 1912 (also printed separately).

74. Gaudi's empirical revival of these traditions was paralleled by learned discussions of their structure by his contemporaries in Anuario, including Jose Domenech y Estapa, "La fabrica de ladrillo en la construccion catalana" (1900); Jeronimo Martorell (a friend of Gaudi's), "Estructuras en ladrillo y hierro atirantado en la arquitectura catalana moderna" (1910); and Jaime Bayo (Gaudi's contractor for the Casa Mila), "La boveda tabicada" (1910).

75. Anuario 1916, p. 48

76. There is no concrete in this building as has sometimes been claimed. The vault is of laminated tiles and tar paper. Gaudi had used the same undulating roof some years before on his neighboring office-studios (now destroyed).

77. A number of explanations of Gaudi's structural innovations exist: Juan Rubio Bellver, "Dificultats per a arribar a la sintessis arquitectonica," in Anuario 1913; Domingo Sugranes, "Disposicio estatica del Temple de la Sagrada Familia," Anuario 1923 (this is the most complete of several articles on the subject by Sugranes, Gaudi's successor at the Sagrada Familia. This article is reproduced in Rafols 1929, pp. 172-90, but without the mathematical calculations.); Francesc de P. Quintana, "Les formes guerxes del temple de la Sagrada Familia," Ciutat i la Casa, Barcelona (1927) no. 6 (reproduced in Rafols 1929, pp. 190-203); Juan Bergos, Materiales y Elementos de Construccion (Barcelona: Bosch, 1953).

Santiago Rubio, Calculo funicular del hormigon armado (Buenos Aires: Gili, 1952) submits Gaudi's procedures to mathematical proof and extends the system to reinforced concrete.

78. Socially the Colonia Guell also holds interest as a paternalistic but utopian experiment in industrial relations. It was laid out with broad, regular streets, included a school and various social amenities. Its tone was strongly religious, and it was commended by the Pope for its benefits to the working class. Industrially speaking, Guell's associate, the inventor Ferran Alsina i Parellada, was given a free hand. Thumb-nail sketches of the men associated with the enterprise are in P. Rodon i Amigo, Els Carrers de la Colonia Guell (Badalona: Museu, 1944).

Technical and historical data on Gaudi's work there can be found in a number of undated booklets on the Colonia Guell, and in Puig Boada, 'la iglesia de la Colonia Guell," Templo, XCIII (Sept. 1958).

79. A good part of the large bibliography on the Sagrada Familia church concerns itself with the iconography and Gaudi's liturgical planning. Besides the standard biographies, details will be found in the books by Martinell and Puig Boada on the Sagrada Familia and in Manuel Gonzales, Arte y Altar, 1st edit. (Malaga: El Granito, 1928, 2nd edit. (Palencia: El Granito, 1938).

The books that Gaudi is said to have relied on chiefly for iconography and liturgy are listed in note 15.

80. Work on this transept has recently begun. The church had been badly damaged and its workshops completely gutted in the summer of 1936 at the outbreak of Civil War. The works remained paralyzed until an effort was made to reconstruct the models in 1951. Although Gaudi's drawings were lost and the models smashed in 1936, enough fragments of the models remained for his assistants to reconstruct his intentions (plate 24) and to continue with the building. Since 1955 there has been a big ten-year drive to finish the Passion transept.

But with Gaudi gone the problem arises about how to finish the church. This has led to a controversy among (1) leaving it as he left it, (2) finishing it exactly as he desired, and (3) starting off completely new. The course followed has been essentially (2) and it has been in the hands of his trusted associates, but many feel that as he constantly changed his own plans for it and was considering modifications at the time of his death, there is no present need to adhere to his last plans. There was a considerable polemic about this in the Barcelona papers just after his death, and it has broken out again now that the works have been taken up once more.

81. Marquina, op. cit., p. 522.

82. Cesar Martinell has edited a comprehensive series of conversations which he had noted down as a young student and assistant to Gaudi; his is the most straightforward and systematic collection: Gaudi i la Sagrada Familia. Such standard biographies as Rafols' and Bergos' publish many quotations and anecdotes. Catalan newspapers that reported frequently on the Sagrada Familia works are full of interviews with Gaudi (see p. 13). Prominent visitors to Barcelona like Albert Schweitzer have reported interesting conversations with Gaudi; Out of My Life and Thought, trans. by C. T. Campion (New York: Mentor, 1949), pp. 81-82.

83. Martinell, op cit., p. 134.

84. Gaudi numbered among his devoted friends many of the leading intellectuals of Catalonia. His rejoinders to the king and to important political figures were famous, as were his long discussions with prelates and a dramatic encounter with Miguel Unamuno ("Las lineas rectas del'arquitecto Gaudi" in El Correo Catalan, 11 March 1930).

Maragall, the writer, exclaimed, "This man is a poet: on his lips all is truth; all is new; it seems that for him each of his words is a revelation, all that he utters seems to him to be unprecedented, and he delights in it with a joyful surprise, igniting himself in the inspiration of his ardent words. Is this not a poet?," Forma, Barcelona, II, no. 16 (1907), p. 25.

85. For descriptions of Gaudi's methods in sculpture see: Joaquin Folch y Torres, "Arquitecte Gaudi" Gaseta de les arts, Barcelona, III (1 July 1926); idem, "Gaudi escultor," Destino (Barcelona) 11 June 1955, pp. 3-4; A Cirici Pellicer, "La escultura de Gaudi en la Sagrada Familia," Cuadernos de Arquitectura, no. 20 (1956), pp. 21-24; Ricardo Opisso, "Las esculturas de la Sagrada Familia," in Diario de Barcelona, 5 July 1951, and Templo, LXXXVI (July-August 1951); Rafols 1929, pp. 90-94.

86. (plate 99). These stools, although not previously cited as Gaudi's, seem to be of the same manufacture as the large pieces.

87. This is observable in Cirici Modernista, pp. 187-248. The furniture makers of Barcelona responded wildly to the stimulus of the Art Nouveau.

88. The names of most of Gaudi's collaborators in the Palacio Guell are listed in Rogent Arquitectura, p. 160.

89. One piece of this Calvet furniture is drawn in Bergos 1954, p. 99.

90. Besides discussions of Gaudi's ironwork in the standard biographies, a series of articles appeared in a special number of De l'art de la forja, Barcelona, I (March 1921) dedicated to Gaudi. This periodical was itself a typical product of the Renaixenca's interest in the old forges and metalwork of Catalonia. Gaudi's own activities at the forge are described in Ricardo Opisso, "Gaudi: genial maestro de forja," in Diario de Barcelona, 2 Dec. 1951 and Templo LXXXVII (Oct. 1952). See also Andres Buil, "Els ferros d'En Gaudi," La Veu de Catalunya, 11 June 1928, pp. 4-5.

91. Gaudi's major associates appear to have been the following (no complete study exists of any of these but some information is available on them all in Rafols 1929 and Rafols Diccionario);

Francisco Berenguer (1866-1914) never became a titled architect, choosing instead to work as a designer for Gaudi and others. His work came closest in stature to Gaudi's own. See notes 32 and 93.

Alejo Clapes (1850-1920) painter who collaborated with Gaudi from the time of the Palacio Guell to that of the Casa Mila.

Jose Maria Jujol Gibert (1879-1949), architect, worked largely as a decorator for Gaudi. He did most of the ceramics of the Park Guell and Casa Batllo and the interior and exterior decoration of the Casa Mila. Continued as an independent architect after Gaudi's death. See Cuadernos de Arquitectura, no. 13 (1950), pp. 1-22.

Lorenzo Matamala y Pinyol (1856-1927), sculptor, Gaudi's foreman and life-long companion. His son Juan continued with Gaudi (see note 92). Federico Ratera, "Un colaborador de Gaudi: Lorenzo Matamala," Templo LXXXIV (Aug.-Sept. 1949).

Carlos Mani Roig (1866-1911), fin-de-siecle sculptor who joined Gaudi in work on the Sagrada Familia church about 1907. Ricardo Opisso, "El escultor Carlos Mani en 'La Sagrada Familia'," Diario de Barcelona, 30 Aug. 1951, p. 20; Feliu Elias, Escultura, II, pp. 128-29.

Juan Onos, smith in whose shop Gaudi's most elaborate rejas were fabricated, including those of the Casa Vicens, Palacio Guell, Finca Guell, Leon and Casa Calvet. See Opisso "forja," note 90.

Juan Rubio Bellver (1870?-1952), architect whose association with Gaudi included the work in the Cathedral of Mallorca. He seems to have been responsible for the execution of the drawing in plate 22. See also notes 73, 77, 108.

Domingo Sugranes Gras (died 1938) inherited the works of the Sagrada Familia. He also took part in the construction of "Bell Esguard" and the Finca Miralles. See note 77.

92. Among these younger assistants, most of whom have published extensively their recollections of Gaudi, should be listed:

The present architects of the Sagrada Familia: Luis Bonet y Gari (1893-), Isidro Puig Boada (1891--), Francisco de Paula Quintana (1892--). The architects Juan Bergos Masso (1894--), Francisco Folguera Grassi (1891--), Cesar Martinell Brunet (1888--), Jose F. Rafols (1889--). The sculptor Juan Matamala Flotats (1893--). The painter Ricardo Opisso Sala (1880--), who was a friend of Picasso in their youth.

See the bibliography for their publications.

93. The critic Feliu Elias ("Joan Sacs") had published exaggerated reports which he had received of Berenguer's contribution. Gaudi's associates corrected him as accurately as was possible in a case where Gaudi himself had called Berenguer "my right arm." The arguments, which contain a lot of data on Gaudi's career, occurred in F. Elias Escultura (1928); L'Opinio 26 May 1928; La Nau 12 and 21 Dec. 1928, 2 and 9 Jan. 1929; La Veu de Catalunya 2, 6, 10, 19, 22, 29, and 30? March 1929, (all of Barcelona).

94. Certainly Gaudi was respected. His fellow architects wrote most enthusiastically about his buildings in Rogent Arquitectura. Puig y Cadafalch was full of admiration for Gaudi as a man and as an architect (interview in El Debate of Madrid, 13 June 1926).

95. The architect de Serra Martinez relates how he and Jeronimo Martorell, another friend of Gaudi, defended Gaudi before the Association when his membership was suspended because he had donated his "tithes" to the Sagrada Familia.

96. There does not seem to have been any effort to collect these. The most slavish pastiches are not necessarily by his closest associates. See also note 63.

97. A statistical analysis of the literature that has appeared on Gaudi and his buildings should cast some light on the intensity and extent of his influence over the years.

Of the 1000-odd references to books and articles that are listed in the Gaudi archive at Columbia University, approximately one-third are dedicated to the Sagrada Familia church. However, a good portion of the latter are concerned with the cult and not with the architecture of that enterprise. Three quarters of the total literature listed was published in Catalonia, which seems natural, but the bulk of the rest appeared abroad, there being only a tiny fraction of articles about Gaudi printed elsewhere in Spain. Thus Gaudi has produced little or no stir in the rest of the peninsula, even in recent years when the literature on him has burgeoned remarkably.

In Catalonia, except during the Civil War, something has been printed every year since 1900, there having been very few articles before that date. Special numbers of periodicals dedicated to Gaudi have appeared about every five years since 1900. Throughout all of Spain the greatest interest in him seems to have been evoked during 1906-07, 1914-15, 1921-22, three apparent crises in the works of the Sagrada Famlia church that were attended by publicity campaigns for funds; and during 1926-28 on the occasion of his death and memorials. Publications increased in the late 1940s and have continued steadily, with a peak in 1952, his centenary year.

Abroad, surprisingly enough, there has been a regular, if modest, output of publications and notices about Gaudi since about 1903. They fell off during the late 1930s and early 1940s, but since 1948-49 they have appeared with increasing intensity and represent the major countries that publish architectural magazines. Greatest interest has always been shown in the United States, Italy, France, Germany and Great Britain, more or less in that order, with occasional responses from Latin America and Japan. Apparently the earliest notices abroad appeared in the United States in 1892. And America, with Italy, touched off the recent interest in Gaudi: a Spanish language periodical of New York City devoted a special issue to Gaudi in 1949 with articles by Catalan experts. Alberto Sartoris and Bruno Zevi were the early enthusiasts in Italy.

As to monographs, there have been only two books on Gaudi published outside of Spain, one American (see Hitchcock) and one Italo-French (see Martinell), both very small. Books on Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia have appeared at two points--just after his death (1928-29) and since 1950 in connection with his centenary celebrations.

In an appendix to his biography of 1952, Rafols gives a summary of the subsequent influence of Gaudi as observed in Barcelona itself; a later, international discussion of Gaudi studies is to be found in H. R. Hitchcock, "Gaudi today," Ark no. 17 (summer 1956), pp. 14-18.

98. Naturally the Association was not as active from July 1936 when its church was sacked. Its periodical, El Propagador, was suspended from July 1936 to November 1943. See also note 80.

99. J. A. Gaya Nuno's article about Gaudi's centenary in Insula (Madrid) 15 Sept. 1952 was reprinted in Solidaridad Nacional (Barcelona) 22 Oct. 1952 under the title "Grave insulto contra Gaudi." The battle raged through Solaridad 7 and 13 Nov. 1952; Destino 18 Oct. and 1 Nov. 1952; Revista 9 Oct. 1952--all of Barcelona; and Indice (Madrid) 30 Jan. 1953.

100. "De la beaute terrifiante et comestible, de l'architecture modern' style" Minotaur, no. 3 & 4 (1933), pp. 69-76.

101. For example, Maurice Casteels in his influental L'art moderne primitif (Paris: Jonquieres, 1930) described the Casa Mila as "orne d'abces," and commented, "Heureusement le monstre est cloue sur place ..." But there were notable and enthusiastic exceptions:

Among the several comments by Le Corbusier during his visit to Barcelona in 1928 were, "This man does all that he wishes with stone ... What formidable domination of structures! ... Among the men of his generation he is the one of great architectonic power ..." La Publicitat, 18 May 1928, and La Veu de Catalunya, 21 May 1928.

And when Walter Gropius was interviewed in Barcelona in 1932, he stated, "Gaudi, among the architects of the old school interests me from the point of view of construction, some of the walls of the Sagrada Familia being of a marvelous technical perfection." Hoja oficial de lunes (Barcelona) 28 March 1932.

102. Quoted in Thomas E. Tallmadge, "The Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family." Western Architect, XXXI (March 1922), p. 37.

103. The main events of Gaudi's career and complete inventories of his works were published in the late 1920s, most thoroughly by Rafols (1929), on the basis of the extensive archive in Gaudi's studio at the Sagrada Familia church. As these records and all Gaudi's drawings and plans were burned during the incidents of July 1936, we are today largely dependent on what Rafols and others had extracted and published previously. Little serious effort has been made to check their data through other sources, and very few new projects or works have come to light since. Materials turn up from time to time in the possession of his former assistants, his patrons, etc. See note 118.

104. The question of Gaudi's birthplace is an open one, hotly contested now for several years between Reus and the adjacent town of Riudoms. Civil records of births were not kept in that area until 1870. Was he born in Reus, where his baptism was recorded on the following day, or on the family farm "Mas de la Calderera," which was situated just over the town line in Riudoms? Gaudi's own statements on the subject, oral and written, are contradictory. Documentary evidence unearthed by Guix Sugranes of Reus would seem to favor Reus as the place of birth. For the polemic and the facts of the case, consult:

Bergos 1954, p. 13 and notes on p. 167.

J. M. Guix Sugranes, articles in Reus for 26 July and 29 Nov. 1952; 1 May 1954.

Various articles in Destino (Barcelona) for 5 July; 2 and 30 Aug. 1952; 29 Dec. 1956; 12 Jan. and 9 Feb. 1957.

105. Although Gaudi's friend Eduardo Toda intended to leave his own series of this magazine to the municipal archive in the Casa de Arcediano of Barcelona, it cannot be located there.

106. This project, carried out with his schoolmates Jose Rivera (later a surgeon in Madrid) and Eduardo Toda (later a Spanish diplomat), marks an important step in Spain's Medieval Revival. Toda, a bibliofile, Maecenas, and benefactor of the Biblioteca Central of Barcelona, continued his interest in the monastery and seems to have been a prime mover in its eventual restoration. The school project, a manuscript of some sixty pages in eight chapters, has apparently disappeared, but it was described in detail by J. Barrera in El Correo Catalan, 1 to 6 Oct. 1926. Toda published a short, un-illustrated version in 1870; Poblet: descripcion historica (Reus: Torquelles y Zamaro). See note 6.

107. This is the dating of Bergos, which takes into account several years of preparation on Gaudi's part after he arrived in Barcelona (Bergos 1954, p. 16 and notes).

107a. The Municipal Museum of Reus possesses a sheet on which Gaudi jotted down historical data and sketches for a student problem, that of a Spanish pavilion at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. He had planned to decorate the stand with names from Catalan history that had been associated with Roger de Flor's expedition to Philadelphia of Asia Minor in the year 1304. The museum also has two handwritten treatises on the siting and construction of churches and on the virtues of country houses that probably formed part of his writings of 1876-78.

108. The decision to finish the facade of their cathedral in the Castilian rather than Catalan or even Victorian Gothic style appears to have been a turning point in the local Medieval Revival. Augusto Font's design was accepted and executed (1882-1912) despite preference by the press and by influential artistic organizations for that of Juan Martorell. Martorell published pamphlets in defense of his project in 1882 and 1883, and was vigorously seconded by his followers Gaudi and Domenech y Montaner, Gaudi's rendering was used in the campaign (fig. 25). See Juan Rubio y Bellver, Taber Mons Barcinonensis (Barcelona: Casa P. de Caritat, 1927), pp. 23 ff.

109. There is some confusion as to the date that Gaudi began work on this building. Del Villar relinquished the project in 1883. Puig Boada and others, who had access to records now lost, state that Gaudi accepted the commission on 3 Nov. 1883 (Puig Boada, S.F., 1929, p. 11). Probably construction was not resumed until 1884. El Propagador, official organ of the enterprise, made no mention of the change at the time and gave contradictory dates in later accounts.

110. This building has usually been dated 1892-94. However, Gaudi was apparently first approached in 1890, and his plans are dated December 1891. The structure then took two years to build. The history of the firm and of the building is related in articles in Destino (Barcelona), 18 April and 9 May, 1953, and in Leon, a local magazine, for May 1954.

The idea of placing St. George, the patron saint of Catalonia, on a Leonese building was resented locally. But when, because of "deterioration," it was removed in the 1950's, La Vanguardia Espanola of Barcelona led a campaign for its replacement, which was carried out in 1956 (Vanguardia, 21 Dec. 1952, 4 Feb. 1953, 10 July 1956; Destino, 27 Dec. 1952).

111. One rose window and two lancets were designed by Gaudi and in part carried out by assistants. The windows were made of four laminations of glass: yellow, blue, red, and white, the unwanted hues removed from the design by acid. This system of Gaudi was calculated to produce unusual brilliance of light and an infinite range of colors. (See Puig Boada, S.F., 1952, p. 125).

112. Rafols had dated the pulpits 1912, but later research at Blanes points to this earlier date. See Jose M. Garrut, "Una obra poco conocida de Antonio Gaudi," in Templo XC (Feb. 1955), p. 6.

113. For this planning see Rafols 1929, pp. 115 ff; Bergos 1954, pp. 152-53; Calendario 1927, p. 22; El Propagador, 1 April 1927; and La Noche (Barcelona), 7 April 1927.

114. Other exhibitions of Gaudi's work during his lifetime were held in Madrid 1911, Gerona 1915, Olot 1915, Reus 1916, crypt of the Sagrada Familia 1917, Valls 1917, and as part of a general exposition of liturgical art in Barcelona 1925.

115. Gaudi was also featured in the second Exposition of Liturgical Art in 1928. This appears to have been the last exhibition of his work until the centenary of his birth in the 1950s--photographs of his works being included in the Spanish exhibit at the Milan Triennial of 1951.

116. For "The Strange Architecture of Antonio Gaudi," in The Listener.

117. This shrine was to be similar to that of the Madre de Dios planned for the north cloister of the Sagrada Familia church and described in Album Record a Gaudi (Barcelona, 1936), pp. 91-93. The request from Chile was reported in Calendario 1927, p. 23. Gaudi's correspondence with Chile on the matter is lost. Bishop Larrain of Rancagua has reported, through Malte Crasemann of Santiago, that no information can be found in their archive there.

118. To complete this inventory, it should be mentioned that the architect Bonet y Gari owns a drawing by Gaudi for a monument to Prat de la Riba (1918); the architect Quintana has drawings for lamps; the sculptor Juan Matamala has a photograph of a workshop constructed by Gaudi for one of his assistants. The Amigos de Gaudi of Barcelona are attempting to collect and preserve such fragments.
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Re: Antonio Gaudi, by George R. Collins

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INDEX

Abstract expressionism, 28, 2
Alena, altar, 14, 29, 15
Alsina, Ferran, 128
"Amigos de Gaudi", 6, 7, 30, 32, 121,
125, 131; U,S,A, (Columbia University),
129, 131
Amatller, casa, 20, 76
Andalusian trip, 12, 30
Andres Luna, Mariano, 30
Arches, parabolic, II, 12, 15, 16, 21, 23,
24, 25, 6, 10, 21, 30, 50, 80, Fig, 1
Aribau monument, Barcelona, 29
Arlequin, El (Reus), 28
Art Nouveau, 7, 15, 19, 20, 22, 26, 27,
30; see also Modernismo
Arts and Crafts movement, 11
Asociaci6n de Devotos de San Jose, 13,
125, 130
Association of Architects, 27, 124, 129
Astorga, bishop of, see Grau; Episcopal
Palace, 9, 15, 30, 126, 41-43, Fig, 3;
cathedral, 41
Ayuntamiento of Barcelona, prize, 29,
31

Banners, 26, 31
Barba Corsini, F, J,, 32
Barcelona, 7-8, 13; Cathedral facade,
29, 123, 131, Fig, 25, , street lights, 29;
waterfront, 29, Exposici6n Universal
188&, 30, 124, 125; Barrio G6tico, 32,
131; Sala Pares exhibition, 32; Sal6n
del Tinell exhibition, 121; Sal6n de
Ciento, 121; University, 122, 124;
church of the Salesas, 123; expositions of liturgical art, 131; railway
station, 121, See also Ayuntamiento,
Casa, Colegio, Farmacia, Finca, Pal·
acio, Park, Parque, Salon, Sagrada
Familia
Barceloneta, street lights, 29
Batllo famity, 31; see also Casa Battlo
"Bell Esguard" (Casa Figueras), Barcelona, 17, 31, 36, 126, 4, 64, 65, Fig, 24
Berenguer, Francisco, 27, 31, 124, 129
Berg6s, Juan, 129, Fig, 1; see Bibliography
Bilbao, Modemismo, 127
Blanes, church pulpits, 31, 127, 131, 74
Bocabella, Jose, 13, 30, 123; altar, 30
Bonet, Luis, 6, 129, 131, 46, 47, 75, 78,
Fig, 9
"Botines, Casa de los, " see Leon, Casa
Fernandez-Andres
Brussels, Tassel House, 127

Calendario Josefina, 133
Calvet, Pedro Martir, 30; Colonia, 121;
see also Casa Calvet
Cambo, Francisco, 9
Campins, bishop, 9
Casa Battlo, Barcelona, 20, 26, 31, 127,
8, 75-85, 104
Casa Calvet, Barcelona, 19, 20, 26, 30,
126, 129, 54, 55, 105~1O7
"Casa de los Botines, " see Leon
Casa de los Guzmanes, Le6n, 16
"Casa de los huesos, " see Casa Battlo
Casa Figueras, see "Bell Esguard"
Casa Mila, Barcelona, 20-22, 27, 32,
125, 127, 6, 86-91, Fig, 6, 7,
Casa Vicens, Barcelona, 11, 29, 124,
125, 10-12
Casafl,as, cardinal, 123
Casanovas, Ignacio, 123
Cascade, see Parque
Cascante, Cristobal, 29, 124
Castelldosrius family, houses, 121
Catalan vaulting, see Vaulting
Catalanisrn, 7, 9, 13, 15, 19, 123, 124,
126, 134
Catalonia 7; escutcheon, 29; Mancomunidad,
123, 127; patron saint, 131,
51; politics 9, 122; see also Modernismo
Cercle Artistic de Sant Liuc, 32, frontis,
Cervera, altar, 121
Chile, Rancagua shrine, 121, 131
Church furniture, candelabrum, 26, 103,
Casa Batllo, 26, 104; monstrance 29,
Fig, 11; see Comillas chapel
Churrigueresque, 19
Clapes, Alejo, 32, 129
Colegio de Jesus,Maria, Tarragona, 29
Colegio de Santa Teresa de Jesus, Barcelona, 16, 26, 30, 45-50, chapel, 121
Colonia GUell, see Santa Coloma
Columbia University, 129, 131
Comella, showcase, 9, 29
Comillas, "El Capricho, " 12, 29, 124, 1,
13, 14; palace, 123, Fig, 21; pantheon chapel,
123, 124, 13; chapel furniture,
29, 123; seminary, 123, 124; Marques
of, see Lopez
Compania de Santa Teresa, 16, 123
Compania Trasatlantica, 124; Barcelona
exposition pavilion, 12, 30; Cadiz ex
position pavilion, 12, 121
Concrete, 19, 23-25, 128
Constructivism, 65
Cooperatives, 122; see also Mataro
Correo catalan, 13

Dali, Salvador, 18, 27, 126, 130
De Valls, priest, 9
Del Villar y Carmona, Francisco de
Paula, 123
Del Villar y Lozano, Francisco de
Paula, 9, 10, 13, 14, 28-30, 123, 125
Diario de Barcelona, 13
Diu de Quijano, Maximo, 29
Domenech y Montaner, Luis, 10, 12,
19, 123, 124, 127, 131
Doric Order, 18, 19
D'Ors, Eugenio, 127

Einstein Tower (Mendelsohn), 27
Elias, Fetiu ("Joan Sacs"), 129
Episcopal Palace, see Astorga
Esperandieu, Henri, 10

Expiatory Temple, Barcelona, see Sagrada
Familia church
Expressionism, abstract, 28, 2
Fannacia Gibert, Barcelona, 121
Fernandez Riu, Aquilino, 30; Jose, 30
Fernandez-Andres, Casa, see Le6n
Figueras family, 17, 31; Casa, see "Bell
Esguard"
Finca Gtlell, Barcelona, 12, 15, 30, 125,
2, 39, 40
Finea Miralles, Barcelona, 20, 31, 72, 73
Flor, Roger de, 131
Folguera, Francisco, 129
Font, Augusto, 131
Font, Norberto, 121
Fontsere, Jose, 9, 10, 29, 123; cascade,
10, 29, 9
Fortuny, Mariano, 12
Franciscan mission, see Tangier
Freud, 10, 123
Furniture, 11, 26; own 29, 121; Casa
Batllo, 20, 26, 83, 104, Casa Calvet
20, 26, 105-107; Colonia Guell, 26,
57; Comillas chapel, 11, 26, 29, 129,
96-99; Palacio Guell, 26, 100-102;
Tarragona chapel, 8, 29; see church
furniture
Gabo Naum, 23
Garden suburb, 17~ 18, 126
Garraf, hunting pavilion, 12, 29, 124;
Bodegas Guell, 124, Fig, 22, ' gate~
house, 124, Fig, 23
Gaudl, Antonio, accident and death,
10, 27, 32, 123; associates, 26, 129;
birthplace, 8, 28, 122, 130, chronology, 28-32; evaluation, 6, 7, 26-28;
exhibitions, 23, 32, 127, 131; health,
9, 122; house in Park, Guell, 9, 66;
influence, 7, 8, 26-28, 32, 121, 127,
129, 130; library, 123; life, 8-10; portrait,
frontis,; posthumous honors, 27,
32, 121; religious character, 8~9, 1316, 23, 24, 27, 122, 123, 125;
romance,
122; school and school projects, 8,
28, 29, 122, 130, 131, Fig, 20; travels,
9, 12, 15, 30, 123
Gaudi family, 122
Geometry, 12, 22-24, 122, 7, 18
Germany, 27, 127
Gerona, 31, 121, 131
Goethe, 19, 126
Gothic Revival, 10, It, 13, 14, 17, 19
26, 123, 124, 19
Granell, J, F,, 127
Graner, Luis, 31; chalet, 20, 31
Grau, Juan Bautista, bishop, 9, IS, 16,
30, 41; catafalque, 121
Greek classicism, 18, 127
Gropius, Walter, 130
Guell, Bodegas, see Garraf; Colonia,
see Santa Coloma; Finca, see Finca
Gftell; Palacio, see Palacio Guell;
Park,, see Park Guell
Guell family, 12, 24, 121, 126
Guell y Bacigalupi, Eusebio, Conde de,
7, 9, 11, 14-15, 17, 18, 29-31, 125-127
Guell y Ferrer, Juan, 125, 126
Guell y Jover, Eusebio Vizconde de, 6, 7
Guell y Lopez, Juan Antonio Conde de,
125, 126
Guereta, Luis de, 30
Guimard, 19
Guix Sugranes, J, M,, 6, 130
Guzmanes, Casa de los, Le6n, 16
Helicoidal surfaces, 95, Fig, 8
Holy Family, 76,, see Sagrada Familia
Hons y Botines, Juan, 30
Horta, Tassel House, 127
"Huesos, Casa de los", see Casa Batll6
Huguet, Joseph, 125
Hyperbolic paraboloids, 22, 23, 25, 28,
122, 24

Ironwork, to, 12, 15, 26, 124, 129, 11,
29, 30, 36, 39, 48, 51

Jaime el Conquistador, monument, 32,
Fig, 19
Joseph, Saint, 13, 14, 125
Jugendstil, 19; see Art Nouveau
135
Jujol, J, M,, 19, 22, 32, 129

Klee, Paul, 21
Kneipp, Sebastian, abbot, 9, 122

Le Corbusier, 130, 132
Leo XlII, pope, 125
Leon, 15;, Casa Fernandez-Andres, 16,
30, 131, 51-53, Fig, 4; Casa de los
Guzmanes, 16
Libreria Herederos de la Vda, Pla, Barcelona,
125, 133
Liturgical Art, expositions, 131
Lliga Regiona1ista, 9, 125
Llimona, 124
Lopez y Bru, Claudio, second Marques
of Comillas, 30, 123-125; pontifical
seminary, 123
Lopez y Lopez de la Madrid, Antonio,
first Marques of Comillas, 11, 12,
123, 124; Palace, 123, Fig, 21; pantheon-
chapel, 29, 123, 124, 13, 96-99
Loreto, Italy, replica, 13, 30

Madrid, 15, 121, 131; Academy, 122
Mallorca, cathedral, see Palma
Mani, Carlos, 129
Maragall, Juan, 13, 122, 126, 128, 133
Marseilles, Longchamps cascade, 10
Martin I, king, 31
Martinell, Cesar, 6, 128, 129; see Bibliography
Martir, Pedro, 54; see Casa Calvet
Martorell, Juan, 9, 11, 12, 13, 28, 29,
123, 124, 131, 13, Fig, 25
Matamala y Flotats, Juan, 6, 125, 129,
m
Matamala y Pinyol, Lorenzo, 9, 129
Mataro, La Obrera Mataronense, 9, 11,
122; machinery shed, 11, 29, Fig, 1;
kiosk, 11, 29, Fig, 12; housing, 11,
29; banner, 121; announcing apparatus,
121
Medieval revival, 1, 10, 131; see Gothic
Revival
Mediterranean, 20, 21, 25
Mila, Dona Rosario, 32, 8B
Mila family, 22; see Casa Mila
Milan, exhibition, 121
Miralles, Hermenegildo, 31, 121; house,
20, 31; firm, 121
Modernismo, 1, 19, 23, 26, 21,124, 126,
134; see Art Nouveau
Montserrat, 10, 123, 127; camarin, 10,
28, 123; Rosary groups, 28, 31, 127,
Fig, 17; mirador, 121, Guell tomb, 121
Morgades, bishop, 123
Moroccan trip, 9, 12, 30
Moslem art, 10-13, 16, 40
Mudejar, 11
Muralla del Mar, Barcelona, illumination,
29
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
exhibition, 121

Nature, forms, 18-20,24, 26, 126
Neo-Gothic, It, 13, 14, 15; see Gothic
Revival

Obrera Mataronense, see Mataro
Olot, exhibiton, 131
Onos, Juan, 124, 129
Opisso, Ricardo, 129
"Orfeo Catala", 124
Osso, Enrique de, priest, 30, 123
136
Padros i Borras, 29
Palacio de la Musica Catalan, Barcelona,
124
Palacio Episcopal, see Astorga
Palacio Guell, Barcelona, 14, IS, 19, 26,
3D, 125, 129, 27-38, 100-102
Palma de Mallorca, cathedral reform,
9, 18, 23, 31, 127, 130, Fig, 1B
Parabolic arches, see Arches
Paris, Art Nouveau, 19; exposition of
1878, 9, 11; exhibition of 1910, 23, 32,
127
Park, Guell, Barcelona, 9, 17, 18, 28, 31,
126, 3, 66-71, Fig, 5
Parque de la Ciudadela, Barcelona, 10,
29, 123; Cascade, 10, 29, 9; Aribau
balustrade, 29; entrance gates, 29
"Pedrera, La, " see Casa MilA
Pevsner, Antoine, 23
Pevsner, Nikolaus, 32
Philadelphia, exposition, 131
Picasso, 7, 121, 28
Pius IX, pope, 125; X, pope, 126
Plant forms, see Art Nouveau, Nature
forms
Plaza Real, Barcelona, street lights, 29
Poblet, monastery restoration, 28, 130
Pomeret bridge, Barcelona, 31
Prat de la Riba, Enrique, 9, 131
Propagador de la Dellocion de San Jose,
13, 132, 133
Publicitat, 13
Puig Boada, Isidro, 6, 129, 131; see
Bibliography
Puig y Cadafalch, Jose, 19, 20, 127, 129:
Casa Amatller, 76
Pujols, Francese, 127
Pyrenees, 21, 122
Quintana, Francisco de Paula, 6, 129,
131; see Bibliography
Rafols, Jose F , 6, 129; see Bibliography
Rancagua, Chile, 121, 131
Red House, England, 11
RenaixenlfB movement, 7, 19, 20, 26, 27,
124, 126, 127,134
Reus, birthplace, 8, 28, 122, 130; El
Arlequin, 28; Municipal Museum, 29,
31, 121, 130, 131; Sanctuary of the
Misericordia, 20, 31, Fig, 16; Pilgrimage
banner, 121; exhibition, 131
Ripoll, monastery, 124
Riudoms, 130
Rivera, Jose, 130
Rococo, 19
Rodriguez, Jose Maria, priest, 13
Rogent, Elias, 11, 122, 124
Roquet-Jalmar, J,, chasuble, 121
Rosary groups, see Montserrat
Rubio, Juan, 129
Ruskin, John, 10, 19, 126

Sagnier, Enrique, 19, 127
Sagrada Familia church, Barcelona, 8,
9, 13, 14, 20, 23-27, 29, 30, 121130,
133, 61 7, 16-26, 69; apse, 30,
19; candelabrum, 26, 30, 103; chapel
of S, Jose, 30, Fig, 14; crypt, 14, 30,
del Villar projects, 14, 3D, 125, Fig, 2;
destruction, 128; drawings, 22, Fig,
13; Oloria facade, 30; Loreto project,
13, 30; models, 128, 21, 24; Nativity
transept, 20, 26, 30, 16, 17; Passion
transept, 25, 30, 128, 20; plans, 25,
26; towers and spires, 30, 7, 18
Sagrada Familia Schools, 23, 32, 95,
Fig, 8
Sala, Emilio, 28
Sala Meree, Barcelona, 121
Sala Pares, Barcelona, exhibitions, 32,
134
Salesas, Monastery and church, Barcelona,
123
Sal6n de San Juan, Barcelona, 29, Fig,
10
San Andres de Palomar, Barcelona, 13,
121
San Cugat del Valles, 124
San Felipe Neri, church, 9, 32
San Feliu de Codines, banner, 31, Fig,
15
Sanctuary of the Misericordia, see Reus
Santa Coloma de Cerve1l6, Colonia
OneIl, 23-26, 28, 31, 128; Chapel
(church), 31, 5, 20, 56-63, Fig, 9;
funicular models, 24, 62, 63
Santa Teresa de Jesus, see Colegio,
Compania
Santalo, Dr, Pedro, 122
Santander, see Comillas
Sao Paolo, Brazil, exhibition, 121
School, of Architecture of Barcelona, 8,
11, 28, 121, 122; see also Co1egio de
Jesus Maria, Colegio de Santa Teresa,
Sagrada Familia School
Schweitzer, Albert, 128
Serra Martinez, J, B, de, 6, 12, 29, 124,
129
Serramalera, Jose, 29
Spain, civil war, 128, 130, 133
Steiner, Rudolf, 126
Street lights, Plaza Real, 29; Barceloneta
29, Muralla del Mar, 29
Sugranes,, Domingo, 31, 129
Sullivan, Louis, 28, 124
Surrealists, 18, 27, 28
Tangier, mission, 12-14, 16, 30, 125,44
Tarragona, 8, 13; Colegio de Jesus-
Maria, 29, altar, 121
Templo, 132, 133
Teresan school, see Colegio
Tibidabo mountain, 125;
Tiles, 11, 12, 15, 18-20, 26, 123, 124,
127, 129; 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 14, 69, 84, 85,
89
Toda, Eduardo, 122, 130
Torras y Bages, bishop, 9

Unamuno, Miguel, 128

Valencia, pulpit, 121
Valeri, Salvador, 127
Vallfogona de Riucorp, cavalcade, 29
Vallgorguina, chapel, 121
Vallmitjana, 124
Valls, exhibition, 131
Van de Velde, 19
Vanguardia, 13
Vaulting, Catalan, 23, 128, 37, 43, 94
Veu de Catalunya, 13
Vicens, Manuel, 11,2 9; see Casa Vicens
Vidal, Francisco, 125
Vilaseca, Jose, 124
Villaricos (Almeria), church, 13, 121
Viollet-le-Duc, Eugene, 10, 14, 15, 17,
123
Virgin de 1a Oracia, 21

Wright, Frank Lloyd, 8, 27
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