A tribute to Gaudi: he was an original thinker, an iconoclast who did things his own way — in spite of the steamroller impact of modernism. John Gough pays homage to the visionary genius of Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi - Essay - Critical Essay

New Internationalist, Oct, 2002 by John Gough

Look at Gaudi though, for he is the antithesis of the uniform. His work brims with beauty, mystery, colour, rhythm and harmony -- those 'secondary qualities' which modern architecture ignored in favour of the kind of drab apartment blocks which now make up Barcelona. In the modern age Gaudi was, as one guidebook puts it, 'right out there on his own'.

He was the exception. His language was not the cool, abstract calculus of the square, the mathematical, the logical. Rather he looked through a round window, a spiritual aperture and learned a different language of nature as distinctive as Catalan, his mother tongue. To see Gaudi is to see nothing primary, nothing uniform, nothing standardized, cheapened and diminished. No straight lines, no abstract calculations, squares, nothing planned in neat determinism. And no drawing board, only roughly sketched designs often made up on site as he went along. To the blind the response was typical of eyes long accustomed to the dark and suddenly opened to the pain of colour and imagination. They drew away. It was too much. Better the dull grey uniformity, the safety of lines and numbers of the new architecture.

Casa Vicens, Colegio Teresiano, Parc Guell and many more -- all sparkle like gems around the jewel -- The Sagrada Familia. When Gaudi designed he drew from nature as well as Art Nouveau, Gothic and Spanish-Arab architecture. And of course the vernacular, local ceramics and ironwork. Nature, like Gaudi, abhors a straight line. Nor has she any blank canvas. Everything must be coloured in.

'Do you know where I found my model?' said Gaudi, pointing to a project in his cathedral workshop. 'An upright tree, it bears its branches, and these in turn, the leaves. And every individual part has been growing harmoniously, magnificently, ever since God the artist first created it.'

And the Sagrada Familia itself grew like a tree. Underneath was Gaudi, rooted as ever to the spot, spending his last years living out his mission in his workshop, defying all architectural precepts. Work became his master, he the slave, the white bearded sage, ragged and poor. When he died in 1926 under that tram, work on the church had hardly begun. And only recently has the world's longest building project got an approximate finish date. The roof is supposed to be complete by 2010. As for the rest, who knows? At the end of the century perhaps. Perfection, like sainthood, is an eternal occupation.

As cranes shadow the spires and workers move about to the sound of drill hammers, Jose Maria Subirachs is not so sure about Gaudi's looming sainthood. Subirachs, one of the sculptors working on the Sagrada Familia, fears that making the architect an official icon of the Catholic Church will diminish his status as an artist.

'Gaudi was a creator, an extraordinary man, perhaps the greatest artist of our century. But a saint? No, I don't understand it.' He feels the Catholic Church should not be able to monopolize Gaudi and lay claim to his life, work and memory.