1) A love of botany created an architect
A weak child suffering from rheumatism, Antonio Gaudi discovered the world of fantasy early on, learned to carefully observe and understand the language of nature. This served as the basis for many images and ideas of the young architect and gave him a strong sense of homeland (he remained faithful to childhood friends for life, and his assistants mainly came from Reus, Tarragonaand surroundings; this was more than enough reference for Gaudí). Even as a child, Gaudi became seriously interested in botany. He was genuinely interested in plants and the insects that pollinate them.
Your final school essay Antonio Gaudí dedicated to bees
The Spanish architect devoted his final school essay to bees. Later his first educational project in the Barcelona School of Architecture, the gates of the cemetery became, which were supposed to separate the world of the dead from the world of the living.
2) Hatred of straight lines and routine
Gaudi simply hated closed and geometrically correct spaces, and the walls drove him crazy. He avoided straight lines, considered them a product of man, and circles for him were a product of God. These life principles helped to leave him after his death 18 beautiful architectural creations, each of which attracts the attention of all tourists in Barcelona.
Park Guell
Gaudi had different eyes: one was short-sighted, the other was far-sighted, but he did not like glasses and said: "The Greeks did not wear glasses." Maybe that's why Gaudi's drawings, familiar to all architects, looked a little different. All his projects: from tiles on the pavement, benches and gates to the Sagrada Familia (Sagrada Familia), Antonio designed in the form of original layouts, which with the help of mirrors turned into three-dimensional models.
3) Love of a lifetime
Gaudi never married.In all of Gaudí's life, only one woman is known to whom the architect showed signs of attention. Josephine Moreau, who worked as a teacher in a workers' settlement. She did not reciprocate and Gaudi went headlong into Catholicism. In his youth, the architect was a zealous anti-clerical, wore expensive clothes, followed appearance. The architect spent the last years as a hermit, devoting all his strength and energy to the creation of the immortal Sagrada Familia, which became the highest embodiment of not only his unique talent, but also his devout faith. By the way, their last years he lived his life in it, leaving his habitual dwelling, settling at a construction site in Spartan conditions.
Only one woman is known to whom Gaudi showed signs of attention.
4) Talent in everything
Gaudí was not only an architect, he was also an artist in the highest sense of the word. He designed not only buildings, but also amazing furniture, bizarre lattice fences, gates and railings. He explained his amazing ability to think and feel in three dimensions by heredity: his father and grandfather were blacksmiths, one of his mother’s grandfathers was a cooper, the other sailor was “people of space and location.” His father was a coppersmith, and this fact undoubtedly influenced Gaudí's predilection for art casting. Many of Gaudí's most astonishing creations are made of wrought iron, often with my own hands.
Casa Batlló
With his own hands, together with cabinetmaker Juan Munnet, a garden bench was also made from artificial stone. It was intended for Park Güell.The original design of this unique bench combines everything that Gaudí put into each of his works: here you will find unusual proportions and a smooth pattern of lines inspired by organic forms. And most importantly, in accordance with the principles of Art Nouveau, all these aesthetic delights are combined with strict fulfillment of purely functional requirements for ergonomics.
5) Construction, 140 years long
After an absurd death in 1926, the 73-year-old Gaudí was buried in the crypt of the Sagrada Familia. The construction of the cathedral did not stop, but the pace slowed down markedly. And in 1936, war broke out in Spain and construction was briefly interrupted. The anarchists destroyed almost all the drawings and models left by Gaudi for the followers of the construction of his offspring, simply setting fire to the workshops. But the construction of the temple continued after 20 years and is still going on, and all this is at the expense and donations of people. Currently, the construction is headed by the Catalan architect and painter Josep Maria Subirax.
Sagrada Familia
Interestingly, the famous English writer George Orwell reacted quite positively to that act of vandalism. The cathedral, in his opinion, should have been blown up altogether. Orwell considered the architect's creations the ugliest structures in the world, and gloatingly called the protruding spiers bottles of port. Fortunately, not everyone agreed with this opinion.
Salvador Dali organized in 1956 in the Park Güell honoring Gaudí
Salvador Dali, on the contrary, admired the work of the architect and even organized in 1956 a celebration of Gaudi in the Park Güell. This made it possible to raise additional funds for the continuation of the construction of the Sagrada Familia. The love of Gaudi's life lives on.
...Antonio Gaudi did not like to be photographed. Barcelona did not know in the face of a person who would glorify her more than the Aragonese kings, Catalan separatists and crazy surrealists. With the blessing of the Pope, the government will bury him in the crypt of the Sagrada Familia, on which he worked for 43 years.
That evening, the 73-year-old architect left the Sagrada Familia under construction and headed to his favorite small temple for the evening service. This is how he ended every day. “Come early tomorrow, Vicente, and we will do many more wonderful things,” he said in the end to the assistant.
Sagrada Familia - the Sagrada Familia, also called the Temple of the Atonement - remained unfinished. The main work of Antonio Gaudi began to be built without his participation - and without him, God willing, one day they will finish. Gaudi apparently understood this. They say that the architect simply answered reproaches of slowness: "My Client is in no hurry."
That a serious project was entrusted to such young specialist- without a name and with a rather modest experience - amazing. The construction of the cathedral had been going on for several years, but due to disagreements between the customer and the contractor, it became necessary to replace the architect. Another venerable architect, who was offered this position, refused for his own reasons - but advised to pay attention to Antonio Gaudi. At that time - 1883 - Gaudi, a 30-year-old graduate of the Higher architectural school, worked as a draftsman in the architectural bureau of his former teacher. It is truly a miracle that the customer accepted this recommendation. Perhaps not last role played the unusual appearance of Antonio. The trustee of the project told about his dream: he dreamed that the cathedral would be built by a man with blue eyes. And Gaudi was red-haired and blue-eyed, which is very unusual for a Catalan. These "irresistible eyes of the prophet" were later remembered by many.
The idea of building the temple belonged to José Maria Bocabella, a shopkeeper and bibliophile, founder of the Society of the Admirers of St. Joseph. It was this society, and not the Church, that acted as the customer of the project. This movement of lay believers arose as a reaction to general secularization, to the oblivion of traditional values. The future temple was not in vain dedicated to the family of the Savior - His Mother, the righteous Joseph, the brothers of the Lord, the prophet David, to whom the earthly kinship of Christ ascended. With its appearance, the cathedral was supposed to remind the world again of the value of the family. And the motive of the Atonement is not accidental - the temple was called the Atonement not because with its help someone hoped to pay off sins. The new church was called upon to remind humanity at what price it was bought, and to keep it from returning to slavery to sin.
Gaudi is on fire. His original idea was grandiose: the Sagrada Familia Cathedral should be higher than the Vatican San Pietro, more than the Venetian San Marco. But it is unlikely that the architect, and even more so his pious customers, imagined that the future temple would become a new chapter in the history of art and the first landmark of Barcelona.
Gaudi's statements explaining his artistic aspirations have come down to us almost by accident, in the retellings of friends and students. Laying a new track in architecture, he did not seek to formalize his creative credo. “People fall into two categories,” he said. The former speak, the latter act. I am deprived of the gift to adequately express myself in words. I am unable to explain my artistic concepts to anyone. I don't even formulate them. I never had time to think about them. I devoted all my time to work.”
Here are the few “software” thoughts of Antonio Gaudi that have come down to us. All of them are about God as the Creator, about the cooperation of God and man, understanding the world of living nature as an inexhaustible source of ideas and forms.
“Man is constantly in the process of creativity. But man does not create anything. He opens. One who seeks to comprehend the laws of nature in order to justify his new job working together with the Creator. And one more thing: “Architecture creates new organisms and, consequently, a law operates in it, consonant with the laws of nature; architects who are not aware of the operation of this law create nonsense, not works of art.
Indeed, the architects of antiquity learned from nature and, in search of harmony, turned primarily to the creations of God. The best temples of antiquity are correlated in proportions with proportions human body. Halls of columns Ancient Egyptian temples resemble petrified groves. However, architecture has never literally repeated the creations of nature ...
Gaudi went further. He populated his city with multi-story rocks and stone caves, as if corroded by waves and winds. He scattered colorful flower meadows made of ceramics and Murano glass on the facades. His houses, according to the writer Peter Vail, do not rise, but flow like stalactites. The strong trunks of stone palms grow into the Barcelona soil, and on the wide boulevards, as if on sea sand after low tide, the railings of stairs and balconies wind with iron algae. Even the Sagrada Familia, at first glance, resembles a sand castle - such children build when playing on the seashore.
Connection with nature was his need with early childhood. Antonio was deprived of outdoor games because he suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. Among his first memories is an overheard conversation between parents and a doctor who predicted the child would be very short life. Adult Gaudi admitted that at that moment he felt an irresistible desire to live. And subsequently put a lot of effort to live fully. Following a medical prescription, he became a vegetarian for life and with early years acquired the habit, in spite of severe pain, of taking long walks on foot. Long hours in the vicinity of his native Reus, as well as days of forced loneliness during severe attacks, gave a lot young artist by focusing it close attention on the natural world. The fast run of clouds, the color of coastal stones, the bend of the river and the outline of distant mountains, among which is the wonderful Montserrat ...
His love, his sensitivity to the creations of nature was not abstract and aesthetic, but living, active. Once in the course of work, Gaudi significantly redesigned the design of the stairs in order to save a large pine tree. To objections, he replied: “I can make a ladder in three weeks, but it would take me twenty years to grow such a pine tree!”
The prosaic "materiel" is often hidden from the viewer, admiring the architect's creation - a complex kitchen of diverse calculations and calculations, the subtleties of strength of materials and materials science, that algebra that inevitably precedes harmony in architecture. The genius of Gaudi seemed to solve technical problems with fantastic ease. “Nature,” he liked to repeat, “is not a geometer, but a sculptor.” That is why his buildings are, rather, sculptures, and all his architecture is sculpture.
It is known that in order to avoid dividing a large space into parts, Gaudí invented his own unsupported floor system. Even in an age when architects have long been thought of computer programs, such calculations can only be made special program NASA, created to calculate the trajectory of space flights.
One of the incredible features of the ingenious Catalan was the ability to build houses without drawings, according to cursory sketches and mock-ups created on the go. The assistant told how the architect set the task of building a spiral staircase. “Gaudi did not show any drawing or model. Slightly rounded and with his hand outstretched in front of him, as if holding on to an imaginary railing, the architect made several small circles in place with quick steps, as if climbing stairs. “It must be done like this,” he said curtly.
It is not surprising that after the death of Antonio, the process of building the cathedral became more difficult at times. And when in the summer of 1936 the anarchists burned the workshops of Gaudí, the construction stopped for twenty years. The architect's idea was restored like a lost mosaic, in parts collecting sketches that were preserved by the students, and photographs of the layouts. By the way, only modern computers could “see the light” in the model of the Sagrada Familia, made up of suspended sandbags, in the spatial model of the cathedral.
Like many architects of his scale, Gaudí considered the division into urban planning, architecture and design to be artificial. With equal passion and talent, he embodied any project - from room furniture to a huge park complex. The brilliant builder did not rule out an excellent draftsman in him. He paradoxically combined the strongest creative temperament, which required unconditional trust from the customer, with simplicity and humility.
Gaining fame and respect good society", becoming a welcome guest in best houses Barcelona, Gaudi was not shy about his simple origin. “I owe my good spatial imagination to the fact that I am the son, grandson and great-grandson of a boilermaker. My father was a blacksmith and my grandfather was a blacksmith. On the mother's side, there were also blacksmiths in the family; one of her grandfathers is a cooper, and the other is a sailor, and these are also people of space and location. All these generations have given me necessary training". He was immensely attached to the family and is very grateful to his parents for the sacrifices they made to give him and his brother higher education. Gaudí never married and at some point moved his family from Reus to Barcelona to take care of everyone.
He was loved by the workers, he was always considered one of their own. People also liked the patriotism of the architect. When the King of Spain visited their construction site, Gaudí did not want to speak Spanish to him - only Catalan. In those years, Catalonia was going through a difficult period in its relations with Madrid. No, Antonio Gaudí was never a separatist. But the ban on mother tongue hurt him beyond measure. Communicating at work with a large number people, he was more inclined to use the services of an interpreter than to switch to Spanish.
Even before his death, he chose to stay in a miserable hospital for the poor, where the next morning after the tragedy, his friends found him, completely weakened. It was impossible to help him. The dying master did not want to hear about the transfer to a private clinic. “My place is here, among the poor”… Antonio only asked for Communion.
Daily worship, constant fasting, indifference to material affairs have long become part of him - at the end of his life, all of Barcelona considered the aged architect almost a holy fool. In his youth, the faith instilled in him by his mother from childhood was tested by doubts. There was a period in Antonio's life when he aspired to become a part of " progressive society”, sat in a cafe, was interested in fashion and socio-political trends, - he was not bypassed by anti-clerical sentiments and skepticism common to young people. Paradoxically, it was his ardent patriotism that pushed him back to religion. It was in religion that he saw a force capable of strengthening Catalonia, saving it from the creeping industrial chaos and confusion of concepts.
But, apparently, Gaudi owed his mature, meaningful faith to one meeting. Bishop Juan Baptiste Grau, his countryman, turned to him for help. The episcopal palace in Astorga burned down. The architect was loaded with work on the construction of the cathedral and the palace of his main patron and friend - Güell, but did not refuse - and soon submitted a restoration project. The monsignor was delighted with the work of Gaudí. And he, in turn, with all his childish soul responded to the unobtrusive pastoral care of the bishop. “Never have I met a stronger will directed towards a good cause,” Gaudí said of him. It was Grau who presented the architect with the book "Divine Liturgy", which turned Antonio's life upside down.
When Monsignor Grau fell ill with gangrene, a friend rushed to him. “Do you know why I understood that the bishop was dying? I found him so miraculously transformed that I felt he would not survive. He was beautiful, too beautiful. Everything individual in him disappeared. Facial features, blush, voice. And perfect beauty cannot live.”
The death of a friend so struck the artist that the first Great Lent he decided to go all out. He had not eaten meat before, but now he had reached the point where he practically stopped eating - and soon fell ill. Neither his father nor the doctors could persuade him to eat. Antonio listened only to the priest, who found right words: reminded him of the main business of his life and convinced him to leave the post for the sake of work. Gaudi returned to construction, deciding to replace the feat of abstinence with the refusal of the architect's salary. He attributed all income from private orders to the cashier of the standing temple. IN hard times When no donations were received and construction stopped, Gaudí first gave away his savings, then went with an outstretched hand to the rich townspeople, and then went to the workers' houses, persuading them to work without pay. It was said that with his eyes he seemed to be able to move people and objects. And every time he managed to resume construction.
A total of 12 buildings were erected in Barcelona by Gaudí. Not so much, but it was his hands that molded the face modern city. Today Barcelona is full of works created in the spirit of Gaudí's imagination. However, the path he chose in architecture did not immediately become a broad road. Gaudi frightened and repulsed many "vociferous" artists, and they did not skimp on caustic philippics addressed to him. However, not only Gaudi, but even then artistic direction, which the masters so reveled in at the beginning of the 20th century, was soon forgotten, “postponed”. The style that we used to call Art Nouveau (in France the name Art Nouveau is more familiar, in Italy - Liberty, in Germany - Jugendstil) flourished in an era when European culture was at the peak of exploration and discovery. However, the civilization that survived the horrors of the First World War, the exquisite lines of Art Nouveau already seemed to be something alien and distant. Starting from the 20s light hand ideologues " modern movement» something square, functional, typical prevailed in urban landscapes. “Corbusier has something in common with the Luftwaffe that both have worked sincerely to change the face of Europe,” the poet ironically. However, the "poetry of the right angle" soon exhausted itself, and in the 1960s Europe rediscovered the amazing architecture of the beginning of the century. That's when the real understanding of the heritage of Antonio Gaudi began.
In vain would be an attempt to close his work within the framework of one style. How Art Nouveau absorbed harmonies different eras, and the architecture of Gaudi "quotes" the entire history of Spain, with special tenderness - national traditions native Catalonia. Among the images of biblical and Christian symbolism, symbols understandable only to the Catalan now and then come through.
According to the paradoxical definition of the researcher R. Hughes, "Gaudi's architecture is a delayed baroque, which Barcelona did not get in time, mystical, mourning, festive, bold, metaphorical, conscious of its role as a" mirror of the world "". And one more thing: “Gaudi was greatest architect and, as many consider, the greatest cultural figure that Catalonia has produced since the Middle Ages.
Will the Sagrada Familia be completed? After the death of Gaudi, many artists demanded that the construction of the cathedral be stopped, so as not to destroy the brilliant idea with ridiculous additions. Like, we are not trying to attach hands to Venus de Milo. And yet little by little the temple is being built. The Barcelona authorities plan to complete construction by 2030.
And in 2015, as expected, the Vatican will issue a document on the beatification of Antonio Gaudi: the architect, according to Catholic practice, can be beatified.
Geniuses in the eyes of society are often eccentrics, "with oddities", "not of this world." Antonio Gaudi was "not of this world" in the gospel sense.
Once, a bishop asked Gaudi why he was so worried about finishing the spiers - after all, no one would see them. "Monsignor," answered Antonio, "they will be looked at by angels."
Catalan architect, representative of the Art Nouveau style. In the 20th and 21st centuries, he was repeatedly called the genius of architecture.
Antonio Gaudi from childhood, he suffered from rheumatism, which prevented outdoor games from other children, but did not interfere with long solitary walks, including by the sea, to which he had an addiction all his life. Subsequently, the forms of clouds, rocks, trees, leaves, sand figures, snails, animals, etc. became the source of his architectural fantasies…
At Antonio Gaudi there were different eyes: one was short-sighted, the other was far-sighted, but he did not like glasses and said: “The Greeks did not wear glasses” ...
Antonio Gaudi never married. “Doomed to celibacy, Gaudi treated his unsuccessful personal life with a certain amount of fatalism. Later he, like many Spanish mystics of the Golden Age, chose " living flame love”, a spiritual pilgrimage that led to God and approved the renunciation of the personal and the renunciation of carnal desires. He abandoned forever sorority, turning into a misogynist who scolded his assistants if they visited cafes of dubious reputation or if they were seen strolling with women.
Giese Van Hensbergen, Gaudi - bullfighter of art, M., "Eksmo", 2004, p. 92-93.
The decisive factor for the realization of the plans of the young architect was his acquaintance in 1883 with the count and textile magnate Eusebio Guell/ Eusebio Guell, who gave him design and architectural commissions and allowed him to express himself in them during 35 years…
“In 1913, in an interview with a reporter for the Montevideo newspaper La Razyn, Gaudí said: “People are divided into two categories: people of speech and people of action. The first ones speak; the second one works. I am deprived of the gift to adequately express myself in words. I am unable to explain my artistic concepts to anyone. I don't even formulate them. I never had time to think about them. I devoted all my time to work.”
Giese Van Hensbergen, Gaudi - bullfighter of art, M., "Eksmo", 2004, p. 10.
The deeply religious master devoted the last years of his life to the creation Sagrada Familia / Escoles de la Sagrada Familia , in Barcelona. Antonio Gaudí conceived a temple 45 meters high with 12 towers (according to the number of apostles), four bell towers (according to the number of evangelists) and two spiers dedicated to Christ and Our Lady (their height was to reach 170 meters); the inner space was to accommodate 30,000 worshipers. The architect dreamed of creating a "Book in Stone Pages". Three facades reflect the most important gospel events: "Christmas", "Passion of Christ" and "Resurrection"; these themes are revealed in huge panels and reliefs that completely cover the walls of the cathedral. As conceived by the architect, the bells of the cathedral were supposed to sound like an organ. Considering the grandeur of the idea, Antonio Gaudi knew that Not will have time to finish the cathedral ...
"The formation of a utopia around the temple Sagrada Familia was determined by the increasing religiosity of the master, which prompted to push the secular and material into the background, striving primarily for spiritual values and their symbolic embodiment. Gaudí saw himself as a tool higher powers. He argued: "Such work must be the product of a long period: longer is better ... The work of one person remains inevitably limited and dies as soon as it is born." Considering the temple as the work of several generations, Gaudi Not strove to rigidly fix his plan in the project, preferring to continuously make refinements to it as it was implemented. He organized the construction following the example of medieval artels, where every particular decision was discussed with the workers. Since 1914, Gaudí left other projects, devoting himself entirely to the construction of the temple. His aesthetic utopia took on a religious and mystical character.
Ikonnikov A.V., Utopian thinking and architecture, M., "Architecture-S", 2004, p. 171.
One day, immersed in my dreams, Antonio Gaudi died, hit by a tram near the cathedral. Gaudi was buried in his favorite brainchild - the cathedral under construction.
As an epitaph A. Gaudi chose the lines of his compatriot - Raymond Lullia:
I am an old man, poor and ridiculed by all,
And no one will help me
In the great work that I took upon myself.
I conceived the greatest thing in the world
and served many good example:
And now I'm unloved and unknown.
At the turn of the XX-XXI centuries, the construction of the cathedral was continued ...
« Anthony Gaudi left behind eighteen structures. All - in Spain, fourteen of them - in Catalonia, twelve of them - in Barcelona. He almost did not leave his city and his province, outside the country he seemed to be only in France and Morocco, he refused to speak Spanish, even going so far as to explain himself to the workers through an interpreter. By the way, the stress in his last name is on the last syllable: Catalan sounds like French. Twelve works on Big city. Not much, but Gaudi focused the standards, set the level. Defined the style. In this case, we are not even talking about the Art Nouveau style (or Art Nouveau in Russia, or Jugendstil in Germany, or Liberty in Italy), outstanding master which Gaudi was, but what he showed: houses, parks, churches can not be built, but sculpted. Architecture as sculpture, architecture as sculpture - that's what Gaudí is. Smoothness, smoothness, streamlining, lack of straight lines and sharp corners, bright colors and applications - everything that is characteristic of Art Nouveau architecture - Gaudi seemed to spiritualize: his houses are not perceived as structures.
Weil Peter, Genius of the place, M., Hummingbird, 2006, p. 287.
“The environment from which he emerged was alien to intellectual reflection. He did not seek to fix his understanding of creativity in some coherent texts; he did not write articles or give lectures. His thoughts have survived only in the form of a meager collection of aphorisms reproduced by his assistants, visitors or the press (his personal archive burned down in 1936). The complex evolution of ideas Gaudi can be traced only by his work (which is not easy, since the implementation of the ideas was stretched, the previously conceived was carried out in parallel with what belonged to the subsequent stages of development).
Ikonnikov A.V., Utopian thinking and architecture, M., "Architecture-S", 2004, p. 164.
Many modern tourists visit Barcelona only because of the masterpieces of Antoni Gaudí…
For the development of creativity Antonio Gaudi rendered the ideas of a French architect, restorer and writer Viollet-le-Duc about the combination of different styles in modern architecture; English educator
He always looked much older than his peers, and at 50 he looked like a decrepit old man. His parents did not hope that he would survive. People laughed at him. Women ignored his attentions. Therefore, he put all his unspent emotions, all his energy into creativity. However, even professionalism and some fame did not save him from a stupid death alone.
Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi was supposed to be the third child in the family. But two children born to his parents earlier died after living a few months. Antonio himself was also promised a short life by his mother's doctor. An evil rock seemed to hang over the Gaudi family - all the children died early, adults also did not differ in life expectancy.
Since childhood, Antonio has been fascinated natural phenomena and processes: for a long time he looked at the floating clouds, blossoming flowers. Later, he became interested in the work of his father (he was a blacksmith), and the boy spent hours sitting in his workshop. School items he was not given. The exceptions were geometry and drawing (which, according to by and large, pointed to future profession). And after school, he often ran to the old ruined monasteries and explored the ruins. He often did this with friends. He had real friends, but Antonio Gaudi could not play outdoor games on a par with them - with early age he was tortured severe pain in the joints, limiting mobility. This alienated his peers.
Talent unleashed in Barcelona
In more adulthood he moved to Barcelona with his father and little niece. First the father died, then the niece, and Antonio was left alone. It is in Barcelona that many of his buildings are located - the “house of Calvet”, the School at the monastery of St. Teresa, the Manor of Park Güell and others.
Gaudi himself designed furniture for his home, which surprised his few friends, whom he acquired as an adult and relatively famous. For example, he was friends with the richest Spaniard Eusebi Güell (in fact, the estate of Park Güell is his property, which Gaudi was allowed to design). This man introduced Gaudi to many of his clients, thanks to which Gaudi was always in business and gained fame as an architect who offers absolutely a new style. Antonio Gaudi was actively ranked among the modernists, but he could work in different styles often combined with one another.
Beggar genius
But if in professional activity everything was more or less well, then nothing worked out in his personal life. The architect has never been married. And even if he tried to court the lady he liked, he would certainly receive either complete indifference or a portion of ridicule. And this reaction was due not only to Gaudí's disease.
He looked great in his youth. In the evenings, he liked to put on a beautiful, expensive suit and go for a walk. Hair and beard were always neatly trimmed. But, tired of the unsuccessful search for love, the architect soon stopped looking after himself. He dressed in baggy, cheap clothes, stopped fighting his stoop and walked bent over in three deaths. The beard hung in tufts. He was often mistaken for a beggar, and once it did him a disservice. In 1926, Gaudi was hit by a tram, or rather was crushed by two trams. Because of his untidy appearance, he was taken to a beggar's hospital, where he died two days later.
Antonio Gaudi - a famous architect - died as a useless homeless child. Most of us, alas, cannot imagine that geniuses can look no different from ordinary people; that they are often sick and untidy. But it is precisely in such people, whom we do not notice and ignore, that genius most often lies.
Antonio Gaudi and his houses
House Vicens (private house, Barcelona).
The architect made gazebos, lanterns and other important little things for the territory of this house.
Address: Carrer de les Carolines, 18-24, Barcelona
El Capriccio (summer mansion, Comillas).
The mansion has a two-level ceiling, many bedrooms and several bathrooms. The house is surrounded by a beautiful garden where you can see bronze statue Antonio Gaudi himself, sitting on the rocks in front of his creation.
The El Capricho mansion on the Cantabrian coast is considered the main attraction of the town of Comillas.
Address: Barrio el Parque, 5, Comillas, Cantabria, España
Official site: http://www.elcaprichodegaudi.com
Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (Sagrada Familia). Partly Gothic building. Gaudi worked long and thoughtfully on the shape of the columns, the height of the arches, and the stairs. The construction of the cathedral was approved by Pope Leon XIII.
Address Cathedral of the Sagrada Familia Street Mallorca, 401, Barcelona
Official website of the cathedral http://www.sagradafamilia.cat
Casa Mila (residential building, Barcelona). There is a terrace on the roof, and the structure itself rests on columns, and not on load-bearing walls. This house was like a home fairytale heroes- its shape is so bizarre. The people of Barcelona liked him very much.
Address: Provença street, 261-265, Barcelona
Official site:
Over the years, famous designers could have taught us at least one thing: never underestimate the power of design. Iconic names such as Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid or Antoni Gaudí have become famous for their intuitive thinking, out-of-the-box approach to work and amazing projects, but the legacy they entrust to us is much more than any of the above. Perhaps it is their wise words that inspire us the most.
"I don't understand why people hire architects and then tell them what to do."
Born on February 28, 1929, Canadian architect Frank Gehry has become world famous for his many tourist attractions. The list of his projects includes a private house architect and other buildings - for example, concert hall them. Walt Disney, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the "dancing house" in Prague.
"A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise planting ivy."
Born June 8, 1867, Frank Lloyd Wright died in 1959 at the age of 91, and during this long period he became an architect, interior designer, writer and teacher. Frank Wright designed more than a thousand buildings, and his philosophy was that there should be harmony between man and his natural environment - this concept he called organic architecture. One of his most iconic works is a project called "The House Above the Falls" - a building he designed in 1935, part of which stands above the falls.
"The straight line belongs to man, the curved line belongs to God."
The Spanish-Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi lived from 1852 to 1926, during which he became known as a representative of Catalan modernism. Its distinctly recognizable style can be seen in these famous works like Sagrada Familia - large Catholic Church located in Barcelona. Despite the fact that this project of his was never completed, the temple was included in the list world heritage UNESCO. Another of his notable work- House Mila, latest project residential building designed by Gaudí. This modernist-style home features a wavy, embossed façade that was the subject of much controversy in its time.
"Architecture is the science of wasting space."
Known for his postmodern work, Philip Johnson was an American architect who lived from 1906 to 2005. He founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Johnson became known for designing buildings entirely clad in glass. One example of such buildings is the Crystal Cathedral, a temple located in Orange County, California. It is the tallest glass building in the world and houses the largest musical instrument in the world - the memorial organ of Hazel Wright.
“Architecture is a very dangerous job. If a writer writes bad books, people just don't read them. But if an architect does his job badly, he condemns a place to ugliness for a hundred years.”
Born September 1937 italian architect first became known through collaborations with other architects and gradually made his name famous through individual style and your projects. His recent work includes The Shard, an 87-story skyscraper located in London, on this moment is the tallest building in the European Union. He also designed the New York Times headquarters building, which is located in Manhattan and is considered environmentally friendly due to its many energy-saving technologies and energy-efficient design.
“I see my buildings as an integral part of cities, and in my projects I try to make them responsible and useful citizens.”
Known for designing some of the world's tallest buildings, César Pelli is an Argentine-American architect born October 12, 1926. He designed the Petronas Towers, the iconic twin skyscrapers in Malaysia that were the world's tallest building from 1998 to 2004 The towers are distinguished by faceted, reminiscent gem, facade, and each of them is crowned with a spire 73.5 m high.
“If there are 360 degrees, why stick to just one?”
Iraqi-British architect, born in 1950 and known for her neo-futuristic designs that reflect chaos modern life. The buildings she designed are characterized by smooth curved lines, oblong shape and multiple perspective. Its defining project is the Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan, a building that has played important role in the development of the city in which it is located. Its fluid form merges with the landscape, and both the building and the surrounding landscape form a harmonious duet.
“I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. And in order to become art, it must be built on the foundation of necessity.
Yu Ming Pei, who is often referred to as the master modern architecture, born in 1917. In 1955 he founded his own firm of architects and retired in 1990, but continues to work as a consultant. It was made famous by the design of the Louvre Pyramid, which serves as the main entrance to the museum. However, he also designed other famous buildings - for example, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. This building serves as the official repository for the original documents and correspondence of the Kennedy administration.
“Every building has at least two lives - one of them in the imagination of the creator, and the other in his embodiment. And these two lives are never similar friend on a friend."
Born November 1944, Rem Koolhaas is a Dutch urban architect and professor at Harvard University. central Library Seattle is an 11-story glass and steel building designed to be a monument to the printed book, even as the digital age arrives.
“The basis of architecture is not concrete and steel, nor the elements that make up the soil. Its basis is a miracle.
Libeskind is a Polish-American architect, artist and professor, born in 1964 and known for his projects in museums around the world, as well as for his houses in the revolutionary futuristic style, such as House 18.36.54 - a building with unconventional form and impressive interior. This building features angled walls and an open and sophisticated appearance.
