Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Design by Nature


To be perfectly honest, I have never been in love with Antoni Gaudi's architecture.  His work is too gaudy for my liking. But, my appreciation for it is certainly there since I know what was involved with the creation of his edifices.  While reading my current National Geographic , an article on Gaudi's Sagrada Familia reminded me of the extraordinary accomplishments Gaudi achieved.  One can say that the church, Sagrada Familia was not an accomplishment because he never finished it.  Unfortunately, he died in 1926.  He dedicated 43 whole years into this structure, beginning in 1843.  167 years later it's still not complete, but the current architects hope to be finished by 2026!  I, on the other hand think the church was a huge accomplishment.  The concept and thought into the detail and meaning of every column, door, window, staircase and stone is genius! 

Gaudi's approach to creating was inspired by nature itself.  Knowing that the natural world is full of curved lines, not straight, and natural materials are sinewy such as wood, muscle, bone and tendons, he mimicked this in his architecture.  Anyway, all I'm saying is I'm in awe of this Church.  Gaudi's genius and design were and still are an extension of nature.  Check out all the details below and make sure to click on images to enlarge. 


Details on a church door:  The numbers in the box can be added in every direction, but the result of the sum is always the same: 33 (Jesus was 33 years old at the time of his death).

1 comment:

  1. I love this post Jesse. I love Gaudi's work. Some call his architecture surreal but its actually as real as it gets. Ive never been inside one of his structures but I could imagine one must feel like an ant looking up at the undersides of flowers and plants. Thank you for this post. Cheers!

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