Gaudí of Barcelona

Book excerpt: “Color in architecture must be intense, logical, and fertile,” wrote Catalan architect and designer Antoni Gaudí in his diary in the late 1870s. Known for his sensuous, curving, almost surreal Art Nouveau buildings, Gaudí (1852-1926) is today one of the best-known architects in the world. Within four decades, he designed a large body of works, including apartment houses, private residences, park complexes, and religious and secular institutions, most of which were erected in or around Barcelona. Gaudí’s organic structures––undulating tiled roofs, pinnacles and towers that rise like plants or tentacles, chimneys that take on phantasmagoric shapes and colors––are all illustrated here, accompanied by plans and drawings that provide a clear picture of Gaudí’s structural innovations. Lluís Permanyer places the architect’s work within the context of Catalan and wider European developments of the time, but he also describes the extremely personal mystical impetus that was at the core of Gaudí’s invention. For those already familiar with the architect’s work, the magnificent photographs taken by Melba Levick, full of details, will prove a revelation; for those just discovering Gaudí, this book is the next best thing to experiencing the buildings themselves.