Speak the Culture: Spain: Be Fluent in Spanish Life and Culture

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1. Identity: the
   building blocks of
   2. Literature
   and philosophy
   3. Art and
   architecture
   4. Performing
   arts
   5. Cinema
   and fashion
   6. Media and
   communications
   7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
   the details of

career went, the more his work mirrored natural forms,

representing lizards and birds, or manipulating stone to

resemble unprocessed, eroded rock. Casa Milà (1905-

07) in L’Eixample is the most outlandish – and famous –

of his houses, its wavy façade and abstract, warrior-like

chimney stacks concealing a building without a single

straight wall. But his masterpiece was the Sagrada

Família, Barcelona’s monumental and still unfinished

church of 12 spires, tiled mosaics and soaring skylit

nave. It has no equivalent anywhere. Gaudí was

commissioned for the work in 1883 and by 1914 was

devoting all his time and cash to it. He ended up

pleading with friends and businessmen to spend on

the project (the municipal authorities didn’t contribute)

and actually lived on site in his final years. When the

reaper collided with Gaudí in the shape of a tram in

1926, his destitute appearance led bystanders to believe

him a tramp.

Unfinished business: La Sagrada Família

Since Gaudí’s death in 1926, argument has rumbled on

over whether his Sagrada Família should be completed

or not. Many of the architect’s few original plans for the

build were lost in the Civil War when the church was

ransacked and only narrowly escaped demolition. Some

suggest that any new work will never be more than a

misplaced pastiche of Gaudí’s original. Le Corbusier and

Walter Gropius apparently said leave it alone. However,

work on the project continues.The depressing, angular

figures of sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs’ Passion

Façade, completed in the late 1980s, didn’t convince the

doubters. One recent estimate set the completion date

for the Sagrada Família some time around 2026, the

100 thanniversary of Gaudí’s death. Gaudí himself was a

Tunnel vision
In April 2007 Barcelona’s
mayor approved a plan
to route a high-speed
rail link to the French
border under the
Sagrada Família, a mere
ten metres from the
building’s foundations.
UNESCO, the church’s
chief architect, Jordi
Bonet i Armengol, and its
board of directors duly
went into meltdown at
the prospect. “This is an
attack on culture of the
highest order,” foamed
Bonet.

“THOSE WHO
LOOK FOR THE
LAWS OF NATURE
AS A SUPPORT FOR
THEIR NEW WORKS
COLLABORATE WITH
THE CREATOR.”
Antoni Gaudí

Everything including
the kitchen sink
The architects of
Modernismeoften
contributed to the
interior design of their
buildings. So Gaudí’s
doors, staircases and
mirrors remain key
features of his legacy.
The great man even
made furniture, bringing
the tactile loopiness of
his architecture to chairs,
cabinets and screens.