Antoni Gaudi

Antoni Gaudi i Cornet became a Catalan folk hero in his own lifetime. Today his work ranks amongst Europe's most widely recognized and revered architecture. The son of a coppersmith, Gaudi was blessed with an instinctive understanding of the materials he used and the workmanship of craftsmen who gave his vision form. This intimate knowledge of the physical realities of architecture was wedded to a deeply religious sensibility that embedded respect for natural forms at the heart of his work. Gaudi believed that the realization of his masterpiece, the church of the Sagrada Familia, was in itself a continuing act of worship. This account traces the development of an extraordinary genius, beginning with his time as an architecture student in Barcelona, through the fruitful patronage of his friend Eusebi Guell I Bacigalupi at a time of unprecedented vitality and inventiveness in his native city, to his tragic death in 1926. As the ongoing construction of the Church of the Sagrada Familia nears completion, this is the essential guide to Gaudi's life and work.