gaudi: modernismo and expensive fantasy

Exotic . Yes. somehow deaf to the entreaties of the less is more school. Almost no one would want to see a landscape completely filled by lesser Gaudi clones, but a little more exoticism that follows the path of the imaginative and fantastical would relieve the innumerable variations of the deadly monotony style of functional architecture that seeks to monetize a building down to the last square yard. Granted some of Gaudi’s  realizations can be considered by some to be a little spooky but…

"Towards the end of 1886, a fire completely destroyed the Episcopal Palace of Astorga. As the city did not have a diocesan architect, Bishop Grau decided to contract his friend Gaudí to construct a new episcopal seat next to the cathedral. When Gaudí was commissioned for the work, in 1887, he was still finishing up with Palau Güell and didn't have enough time to travel to Astorga to survey the area. Therefore, he asked that Grau send him photographs and information on the environment, so that he could prepare a project which meshed well with the surrounding architecture. After various modifications, the project was approved in 1889. Gaudí decided to use Catalan workers and bricklayers to make sure that during the periods when he was in Barcelona, his ideas would be interpreted correctly. " Read More: http://gaudimon.an3.es/modernist-building.php?b=Palacio%20Episcopal%20de%20Astorga

The question is asked whether he simply was an inspired freak or the father of an organic, emotional style that seemed as much an influence on Freud and the surrealist movement of Andre Breton, than the reverse. Chances, are, he was more than a provincial freak generated by the chance encounter of genius with the Gothic revival, Moorish influences, Catalan craft, Art Nouveau, an Spanish Catholicism that made for what Dali called ” the terrifying edible beauty”.

Its a question of the geometric opposed to the organic, the rational to the emotional, the progressive to the historical; classicism to romanticism. Although functionalism and faith in the right angle predominate, their doctrinal basis was shaken by Gaudi  and later by Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn and others who also insisted on embedding some measure of psychological element within the necessary economic and technical requirements.

"Interestingly, Gaudí believed that differences in architecture were caused more by culture, society, politics and religion than aesthetics per se. Gaudí was also deeply fascinated by nature, creatively capturing both environmental and human forms within his designs. In his own words ... Originality consists of returning to the origin. Thus, originality means returning, through one's resources, to the simplicity of the early solutions. And again ... Everything comes from the great book of nature. Gaudí was also an innovator par excellence, incorporating ground-breaking ventilation systems within his designs a good thirty years before they gained mainstream acceptance. ..." read more: http://culturemaking.typepad.com/main/2008/03/culturemaker-an.html?cid=6a00d8341caa8a53ef0147e1776094970b

Daniel Giralt-Miracle:The secret of Gaudi’s art is that he succeeded in grasping the patterns present in nature and the organic world and was capable of selecting from their infinite variety of shapes those that could be transposed into architecture. He pursued this course with great imagination: tree-trunks, branches, bones ribs, fishing nets and flowers all became ideas for designs which he used in churches, parks, schools and other buildings.

All his work was based on logic and reasoning and was thought out down to the smallest detail. Underlying the exuberant fantasy of the shapes he used, there was always a rational calculation and a far-reaching study of the loads and forces involved and of the function of all the structural elements which he brought into play. He applied this method of working as much to the large columns supporting a favade as to the tiniest ornamental details reproduced in ceramic tiles, glass, wood or wrought iron. Essentially, he was seeking to achieve a work of total art, in which the parts and the whole were in harmony and conferred on the architecture a new and different personality, full of aesthetic meaning. Read More: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1989_May/ai_7713049/ a

Parc Guell. A gatehouse , looking like the entrance to a fairyland, guards the road into the park. image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hasan_e_beton/2499466063/

Gaudi later began to be seen then as a little less eccentric; something more than an isolated case that sprung from medievalism into the heart of the Dada movement. Despite his liberal leanings, social awareness and Catalan pride, everything he thought and did was steeped in his religious sentiments which were those of a conservative Catholic  and a student of medieval symbolism. The sacredness of handiwork, a veneration of nature  and an intellectual that attempted to reconcile with profound religious belief. One has to wonder if the religious repression found expression in the savagely erotic shapes he integrated into many of his buildings.

Although he was handsome and something of a dandy in his youth he never married. Around 1910 he gave up his successful bourgeoisie practice and devoted himself entirely to the Segrada Familia church. Eventually, he became an ill-tempered old hermit who dressed poorly and lived in a hovel on the church grounds. When building funds ran low, he would beg on the street, cap in hand. The end was squalidly dramatic with a subtext of martyrdom. In 1926, at age seventy-three, he was hit by a streetcar and badly injured. He was not recognized mainly because his appearance marked him as a vagrant so he was not treated in a timely manner. He died three days later in the pauper’s section of the local hospital.

Gaudi. "This building, designed for a textile manufacturer, served as both a commercial property (in the basement and on the ground floor) and a residence. Gaudí scholars say in chorus that this building is the most conventional of his works, partly because it had to be squeezed in between older structures and partly because it was sited in one of the most elegant sections of Barcelona. Its symmetry, balance and orderly rhythm are unusual for Gaudí's works. However, the curves and double gable at the top, the projecting oriel at the entrance--almost baroque in its drama, and isolated witty details are modernista elements." read more: http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/spain/barcelona/gau

lvet/gaudicalvet.html image: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ZSfEgLkulkPkEyv9-0392g

ADDENDUM:
Miracle: Both artists have been described as geniuses, as creators afflicted by madness, men whose minds were caught in the hallucinations created by certain forms arising from the subconscious. Admired and contested by their contemporaries, they mocked the cultural tenets of their time and succeeded, with bravado and originality, in creating an extraordinary world of novel ideas which are now internationally acknowledged as high points in the annals of art.

Both Gaudi and Dali’ were natives of Catalonia, a region which prides itself on dividing its people into two categories: those who are balanced, serious-minded and well-behaved; and those who are consumed by a kind of rage, who are impulsive, quick-tempered and wilful.

In their own region, Gaudi and Daliare generally thought of as belonging to the impulsive category, most probably because, at some point in time, with the clearsightedness born of good judgement, they opted for the freedom of the spirit and the creative imagination.Read More: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1989_May/ai_7713049/

Read More: http://daliplanet.blogsome.com/category/gaudi/

This entry was posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. and tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *