In Search of Genius and Magic: Spanish Artists Beyond Their Time, Part 3: Gaudí

Like El Greco, Gaudí was a genius ahead of his time, misunderstood by his contemporaries. After his death, he was not highly regarded: fellow architects and critics unanimously considered his designs overly decorative, too heavily Baroque in style, flashy but impractical. We know that in the 1920s and 1930s, Germany had already begun the Bauhaus movement, whose architectural philosophy emphasized 'form follows function.' Gaudí's flashy designs were completely at odds with the functionalist thinking of the time. It was not until the 1950s that Gaudí's works began to receive increasing recognition. The unfinished Sagrada Família was restarted with donations from all sectors of society and the design blueprints left by Gaudí. Currently, all towers except the tallest Jesus Tower have been completed. The official estimate is that the church will be finished by 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death, as a tribute. Gaudí's stature has grown enormously in recent decades: in 1984, his works were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List; in 1998, the Archbishop of Barcelona even proposed to the Vatican that Gaudí be canonized! We can imagine that perhaps on the day the Sagrada Família is finally completed, people will call the architect Gaudí 'Saint Gaudí'!