Window frames curve like flowering branches and ceramic tiling shimmers like reptilian skin in the fervent architectural imagination of Antoni Gaudí. This introduction to the modernist Catalan architect explores how his outstanding attention to natural detail and unique vision transformed Barcelona’s cityscape with extraordinary buildings that continue to amaze, even a century after their construction.

God’s Architect

Gaudí’s ravishing symbiosis between built environment and natural world

From the towering Sagrada Família to the shimmering, textured façade of Casa Batlló and the enchanting landscape of Park Güell, it’s easy to see why Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) gained the epithet “God’s architect.” With fluid forms and mathematical precision, his work extols the wonder of natural creation: columns soar like tree trunks, window frames curve like flowering branches, and ceramic tiling shimmers like scaly, reptilian skin.

With this outstanding attention to natural detail, his inspirations from both neo-Gothic and Orientalist aesthetics, and a lifelong commitment to Catalan identity, Gaudí created a unique brand of the Modernista movement which transformed, and defines, Barcelona’s cityscape.

With seven of Gaudí’s projects listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, this book introduces the architect’s extraordinary vision and unique legacy, exploring the influences and the details which allow his buildings to impress, inspire, and amaze, one century after their construction.

The author

Maria Antonietta Crippa

is currently professor “straordinario” of History of Architecture at the Politecnico University in Milan, at the DiAP (Department of Architecture and Planning of the School of Architecture). Since the early 1980s, she has published widely on architecture and town planning.

The editor

Peter Gössel

runs an agency for museum and exhibition design. He has published TASCHEN monographs on Julius Shulman, R. M. Schindler, John Lautner, and Richard Neutra, as well as several titles in the Basic Architecture series.