Amber Stefani

Gaudi was one of the most creative architects of his time and to date, his work is still carrying on in many shapes and forms. He got his inspiration from a very young age by a book on medieval French Architecture by Viollet-le Duc’s. Another influence was John Ruskin, an Englishman who was an artist, a teacher, writer and a philosopher. His work had a massive impact on Gaudi. He also looked in to gothic art, illustrations of oriental structures and in organic shapes of nature, this is where William Morris influences came about and the beginning of Art Nouveau was born.

The Sagrada Familia is still in construction and to date, Architects are not a 100% on the exact finished design of Gaudi’s visions as he died in 1926. Tragically , he was hit buy a tram and found dead, slumped by the road. It is said that he was there for a while as he looked like a tramp at that time as he was addicted to his work, not paying attention to ones self! This therefore resulted in building work on the project standing still for a while. Lack of funding, plus the civil war also effected the projects construction. By the 1950's work began slowly again and the Sagrada Familia began to take shape. Sadly Gaudi did not get to finish his work. At present, the structure has 8 towers; there needs to be another 10 towers to finnish! I think this shows the cities strong love for his work, vision and talent. They must know how long this ginormous building will take to finnish off.

Sagrada Familia in English means ‘The Holy Family’. This was initially built for the poor people of Spain and now is the most significant building in Barcelona.