Antoni Gaudi

Antoni Gaudí was born in Reus in 1852. Reus was a small town outside of Tarragona, about an hour and a half from Barcelona.

The future architect’s love for nature emerged out of a childhood wracked with the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. Gaudí’s mother took him for trips into the Tarragona countryside, as she believed that a little exercise and fresh air would help him combat his illness.

Amid the rolling hills and fields of almond trees, Gaudi’s eyes awoke to the elegance and harmony of nature.

He finished his secondary schooling in Barcelona, where he continued his education at a Barcelona university (Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona).

Like any starving student, Gaudí used his abilities to earn cash to pay for school. He befriended local architects and businessmen, who in turn hired him for odd jobs and apprentice work.

The budding genius graduated from university in 1878. That year, he landed his first and only public contract, the result of which – a series of iron-laden lampposts – still stand in the Gothic Quarter’s Plaza Reial.

That same year, he befriended Eusebi Güell, a wealthy Barcelona businessman who proved to be Gaudí’s most generous and most enthusiastic supporter.

Gaudí’s career skyrocketed after university. During a span of about 10 years, he designed a variety of structures, from a palace pavilion specifically built for a king to a stable for one of Güell’s properties.

Gaudí’s work didn’t let up as the decades passed. He designed buildings in Barcelona and beyond, completed La Pedrera and Casa Batlló, and started construction on a series of new buildings for Eusebi Güell.

In 1914, after the death of his father and his close associate (not to mention a bout with Maltese fever), Gaudí devoted his time exclusively to La Sagrada Familia. He accepted no payments for his service to the church.

The Sagrada Familia is, in many ways, the shining example of Gaudí’s growth as an architect and artist. The temple’s intricate design and overall grandeur represent the climax of the Catalán genius’ maturation and creativity. Intertwined amid the spectacular columns, colors and forms of the church is the influence of the natural world which Gaudí fell in love with as a child.

More than forty years after beginning Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s life came to an abrupt end. On June 7, 1926, he was walking through the city. He crossed a street, unaware a tram was approaching. The tram hit Gaudí. Two days later, he died in a hospital for the poor.

Mourners laid his body to rest in a crypt at the Sagrada Familia, a fitting gesture for the architect who drew so much inspiration for his church through the natural settings of his beloved Catalonia.