Gaudí or Gaudy?
Yesterday we toured Barcelona and it is impossible to do so without spending an inordinate amount of time seeing and contemplating the works of Antoni Gaudí, the Catalan architect who seems to have almost single-handedly defined this most trendy city on the European continent. We are staying in the most central location of the city on the Passeig de Gracia, where several of Gaudí‘s earlier buildings are located. The style, to me, is a combination of art nouveau and eccentric crazy man. As we all know, lunacy and genius are first cousins and Gaudí, who lived from 1852 to 1926 was somewhere between the two. After this visit, learning about the symbolism and derivation of his work as well as the methods he embodied in his grand scheme for his most enduring and monumental work, the basilica of Sagrada Familia, I am convinced that there was very little about him that was crazy other than his willingness to buck convention and pursue his own vision.
The first thing most people (including me) wonder is whether the derivation of the word gaudy comes from the work of Antoni Gaudí. As much as that thought offends etymologists, who point out that the word gaudy has been in active usage since the Sixteenth Century and comes from Middle English, it is not an entirely illogical thought. The term, as used by everyone including William Shakespeare, means excessively ornate and tastelessly showy. There is a judgement imbedded in the word that implies a degree of crassness. It is clear in the history of art and architecture that the art nouveau period was a moment that diverged from traditionalism and came into favor with a degree of passion only to be quickly out of fashion and looked down upon for another moment as sort of a “what were we thinking” sentiment. When you first see the work of Antoni Gaudí, it is hard not to see the sort of whimsy that one can easily imagine going out of style in a heartbeat. His style might even seem childlike to some. The universe was certainly playing games with Mr. Gaudí when it imbedded in his mind the thoughts and capabilities to create such works that many might well define as gaudy by nature.
That last sentence is packed with lots of relevant commentary because besides being whimsical, Gaudí was also deeply holistic and strove to incorporate nature into all of his work. That might seem a thematic issue, but it is so much more. He actually rethought the principles of architecture and structural engineering and looked to nature for better solutions to the problem of building the megastructure that is still becoming his landmark basilica of Sagrada Familia. He makes one aware of this naturalistic connection right at the front door with ornaments showing everything from turtles to man’s inhumanity to man (unfortunately, an all too natural phenomenon that repeats itself in the human condition over and over again). The painted bronze leaves on the doors give no room for missing the linkage of the project to the realm of nature. But it is the imbedded structure inside the basilica that amazes with its consistency with nature and its heralding that what God has wrought easily outdoes anything man has thought an expedient to a comfortable sheltered life.
Squared lines and solid structure give way in the Sagrada Familia to what may look like whimsy, but is really a hidden yet obvious mastery of natural science. The columns are the key. They are the trees that use the parabolic skyward arch of nature as they reach for the heavens to bear the weight of the grandeur of the vaulted basilica. Where Medieval architecture codified the use of arches, buttresses and keystones, Gaudí set all of that aside in favor of what he thought was a better way that made the walls of the basilica merely ornamental while the real work of the structure was effortlessly imbedded in the lofty columns. Those then incorporate the recognition of the value of the spiral and the new concept that things like the deep fluting of the columns, which becomes a vertical star-shaped extrusion that twists its way upward would add strength without bulk. The subtlety of the design and the clarity of the engineering wisdom is nothing short of amazing. And that is merely the undergarment of the Sagrada Familia.
The really special aspect of the basilica, which is still very much under construction and not expected to be complete for another decade or so (assuming some of the remaining and still puzzling scientific challenges can be met) is in what happens visually when a pilgrim enters into the adoration of the space. I am not a particularly religious person, but it is hard not to feel the presence of God in this place of worship. That happens through two phenomenon that are equally spectacular. The first and most obvious one is the extreme use of light inside the basilica. Gaudí designed the place to make maximum usage of light and oriented the structure to maximize the impact and strength of the rising and setting sun to blast sunlight through colored or stained glass in a most extraordinary manner. The blue and green hues of the spectrum face the East and the yellow and red hues of the spectrum face the West. The result is a kaleidoscopic effect of colored light that gets shed onto the very structure of those fascinating columns that draw your eye skyward to the heavens and the presumed visage of the sacred glory of our creator. The day starts fresh, green and verdant and ends mellow, calming and yet dramatically sanguine. It seems to tell us to start each day with fervor and end each day with hope for the next day. And least we forget our purpose, the windows far up the vaulted copse of the North end are triangular reminders of what Don McLean liked to call the three men he admired most, the father, son and the Holy Ghost.
I’m sure that since Gaudí died when the Sagrada Familia was only a quarter built with only models and sample sections completed, people who see all that I saw today and have explained to them what I had explained by our well-informed local guide (who grew up literally in the shadow of the Sagrada Familia), think that many elements came together serendipitously to make this special place. But I think they would be wrong. Antoni Gaudí is my newest hero. He not only thought almost all of this out in advance and recorded all his conceptualizations, but had the knowledge and insight to lay out what the conventional science could accommodate by 1926. But beyond that, he also, astoundingly, had the foresight to declare that that which had no answers would be found in time to allow the basilica to be created in the scale and vision he had imagined. There is little I can imagine more praiseworthy and showing of his humanity than that he trusted his unidentified fellow man to find the answers he could not and confidently point the way to grace. Gaudí did that with a flair that can be and has been called gaudy, but which I declare quite confidently is pure genius.