{"id":32475,"date":"2026-04-01T00:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T07:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=32475"},"modified":"2026-04-01T08:13:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:13:18","slug":"antoni-gaudi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/antoni-gaudi\/","title":{"rendered":"Antoni Gaud\u00ed"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

About two years ago Sue and I visited Spain and Portugal.\u00a0 I posted more than a few blogs during that trip, but not enough on Antoni Gaud\u00ed.\u00a0 Gaud\u00ed was a Spanish architect who lived from 1852 to 1926.\u00a0 He was clearly a genius.\u00a0 I wish I had known more about him before we went to Barcelona; I would have appreciated what I was seeing more.\u00a0 Better late than never, and after our trip I started reading and studying his life.\u00a0 This was an amazing man.<\/p>\n

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We visited three of Gaud\u00ed’s works in Barcelona:\u00a0 The Park G\u00fcell, the Casa Mil\u00e0 apartment building, and the Sagrada Familia.<\/p>\n

Park G\u00fcell<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of our first stops in Barcelona was the Park G\u00fcell.\u00a0 Park G\u00fcell was commissioned by Eusebi G\u00fcell in 1900, a Catalonian businessman, when he enlisted Gaud\u00ed to incorporate several properties he already owned into the park.\u00a0 The photo ops were everywhere we turned, from the sculpted tunnels to the paths to the buildings and the sculptures.<\/p>\n

When wandering Park G\u00fcell, I noticed that we could overlook the city of Barcelona and see all the way to the Mediterranean.\u00a0 I snapped a photo or two, without realizing that my photo included the Sagrada Familia (it’s in a photo below, identified by a large red arrow).\u00a0 I’ll talk about that more in the next part of this blog.<\/p>\n

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If you look closely, you can see the Sagrada Familia from Park G\u00fcell.<\/p>\n

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Casa Mil\u00e0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Casa Mil\u00e0 is another famous Gaudi work.\u00a0 Completed in 1912, it was initially an apartment building.\u00a0 Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.\u00a0 Like Park G\u00fcell, Casa Mil\u00e0 suggests a Dr. Suess-like whimsiness in its design.\u00a0 The structure is a giant loop, with an opening surrounded by the apartments.\u00a0 The roof contains many sculptures, with some that double as chimneys.\u00a0 When we visited Casa Mil\u00e0, our guide asked if one reminded us of anything.\u00a0 It did.\u00a0 You’ll see it one of the photos below.\u00a0 George Lucas saw it, and it became the inspiration for Star Wars storm troopers.\u00a0 Another one of the photos below shows a model.\u00a0 Gaudi preferred to design with models and use these as the basis for the larger work.<\/p>\n

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The Sagrada Familia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Talk about a long-running construction project:\u00a0 Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia temple has been under construction for 140 years, and it’s not finished yet.\u00a0 We heard that it would be finished in another 15 years, but who knows?<\/p>\n

The construction schedule notwithstanding, the Sagrada Familia is an active church, and if entering it does not make you a believer, nothing ever will.\u00a0 To say it is impressive would be a massive understatement.\u00a0 You have to see the Sagrada Familia to understand the excitement, the grandeur, and the genius of its design.\u00a0 The exterior has that same Dr. Suess\/Harry Potter mystique.\u00a0 Once you are inside, the feeling is not one of being in a building; it is more like being in a well-illuminated and immense living creature.\u00a0 The illumination comes from the building’s stunning stained glass, designed with colors tuned to the light from Barcelona’s sunrise and sunset.<\/p>\n

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Words like those you are reading here don’t do justice to the Sagrada Familia.\u00a0 It is a place that has to be personally experienced to get a feel for its magnificence.\u00a0 I’ll return to Barcelona someday, and you can bet that I’ll visit the Sagrada Familia again.<\/p>\n

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Antoni Gaud\u00ed was a bit of a dandy in his younger days.\u00a0 In his later years, he stopped taking care of himself and basically dressed like a homeless person.\u00a0 He died as a result of being struck by a Barcelona streetcar.\u00a0 When he was injured, people did not realize who he was (they thought he was a vagrant).\u00a0 Antoni Gaud\u00ed’s remains are entombed in the Sagrada Familia, perhaps his greatest and certainly his most widely-known work.\u00a0 The Park G\u00fcell, the Casa Mil\u00e0 apartment building, and the Sagrada Familia are not the only projects Antoni Gaud\u00ed created.\u00a0 I’d like to search for and visit more of Gaud\u00ed’s works when I return to Spain.<\/p>\n

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When Sue and I visited Spain and Portugal, I didn’t take my Nikon D810 and\u00a0 it’s 24-120mm lens (as I usually do).\u00a0 The weight of that camera and lens has become too much for me to carry around.\u00a0 I won’t bore you with the specifics of my age-related infirmities; I’ll simply share that I’m not what I used to be.\u00a0 But I’m still kicking and typing, and for this trip, it was my much smaller and lighter Nikon D3300 and its smaller 18-55mm lens.\u00a0 I also had a lightweight, non-zoom, non-metering Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens, which I used more than I expected to (it proved to be a very capable lens).\u00a0 The D3300 and these two lenses (along with a bit of post-production PhotoShop tweaking) created the photos above.\u00a0 The interior photos were all shot at high ISO (in the range of 800 to 3200), which accounts for the graininess in some.\u00a0 Mea culpa.<\/p>\n

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