STEP 1
Today I’m going to present a very famous architect from Spain called Antoni Gaudi. Who many of you may know because of his famous works like for example: La Sagrada Familia, Park Güell, Casa Milà, Casa Batlló and many more. Many of his works where done in Barcelona as it’s where he studied and luckily the city was at a time of economic and cultural flourishing which favored the search of new architectural styles. Therefore this helped Antoni to start his career with a good start.
Antoni Gaudi stands out for his relationship with nature in a spiritual way. For example, this is a quote from him “There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature. Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners”. Many of his wonderful work are built around natural forms. What Gaudí wanted to show us was that natural forms evoke a certain familiarity and a sense of belonging.
In Casa Batlló Gaudí shows how he enjoys playing with all sort of colors and isn’t afraid on displaying them together. Also it shows how he refuses to use straight lines, like for example in the balconies , they don’t follow the typical structures, he uses different forms. Also in the ondulated façade, using crushed glass and ceramics he covered it forming a floral pattern. Its colors give brightness and life to the building and again involves nature. The most interesting part from this building may be the balconies, they look like real skulls by its forms.
Then there’s Park Güell, in this park Gaudí mixes the baroque with the clasic. In this place he uses a technique called “trencadís” which is about chopped tiles and stucked to the material so that it can adapt to its curve. Once more he shows how he refuses to use straight lines. He introduces nature adding gargoyles on top of the pillaars and also in the famous lizard where not only he uses again the “trencadís” technique, but also adds stones to make it seem a more authentic lizard. In the whole park he continues using a lack of bright colors and also adds spectacular designs like the viaduct which continues all the park creating passages.
Another example of his works is the Church of Colonia Güell, where its bricks willing irregularity and its dark stones give this building a rustic aspect, trying to get a full integration with the environment. One more time he doesn’t follow straight lines and caracteristic patterns. Its pillars aren’t perpendicular leaning, each one goes in one direction and also the big windows have oval shapes. However, its interior is dark although many different colors enter through the window dpending on the area of the church. This church is still not finished although Gaudí didn’t care as it was just to experiment and introduce new things, so the be prepared to design la Sagrada Familia.
His work isn’t only unique for Barcelona compared to other spanish cities, but it is unique worldwide. It’s true that most of his known designs are in Barcelona, but he also worked in other places like León , where he designed the Episcopal Church. This church impacts straight away. He shows his famous caracteristics just at the start with the principal entrance. It’s formed by three big flared arches, built with stones and separated by buttresses.
Gaudí also designed a very famous building in León called Casa Botines, which maked it look as a palace. In this building there are mixed the nordic, gothic and renaissance architecture influence. The building is adapted to its cold conditions and it’s why Gaudí decided to cover the cover of slate, this way making it easier for the snow and rain to slide down during winter. This building has many windows with the intention to obtain a lot of light and ventilation as for example the first floor was focus to commercial spaces of fabric sale business.
To end up I will resume his style as a very delightful, bright and full of life. He’s the kind of person who thinks outside the box and isn’t afraid of showing his ideas, he also shows his intensive passion for colors and nature.
STEP 2
The career of architecture is one of the most complemented ones, it is well known for its great prestige around the world, therefore it has always been one of the careers which people look up as harder or more intense than others, it’s commonly compared to medicine.
At the same time people see architecture as just drawing four perfect lines and sunddenly creating a house, but what they dont realise is that arquitecture isn’t only a making a draft for the contruction of a future building. Arquitecture involves a part of a lot of hard work and preparation; be artistic, open minded, tecnic, creator, thinker, constructor, dreamer, good at showing ideas…
There is a sentence on the book that I liked which was “Being an architect is being capable of creating a house into a dream. And at the same time be able to create a dream into a house”. This sentence shows the passion and effort that there is behind an architectural project and that it isn’t only making four straight lines.
It also talks about all the many places where you can study this career. You can study architecture all over the world, but many places agree with Spain being one of the best countries to study this career. Spain has many prestiged universities to study architecture like for example the university of Madrid, Valencia and Navarra.
In conclusion this book gives the career of architecture a more opened idea of what studying architecture is like and encourages you to study it, explaining it’s real purpose and passion for it. In my opinion it’s a very nice and motivational book which has reminded me why I’ve wanted to study it, it also has made me think of it in a different way and motivated me to keep on working hard on studying to finally be able to work as an architect on the future doing what makes me happy and I’ve always dreamed of.