Introduction of the Mayor of Barcelona

 

The exhibition "Gaudí. Exploring form. Space, geometry, structure and construction", that we are presenting as part of International Gaudí Year, is one of the most outstanding and ambitious events that Barcelona City Council has arranged to commemorate this important year.

In order to raise awareness of all facets of Gaudí's work, we wanted this to be an exhibition that focuses on the more technical side of his architecture, particularly the aspects related to the concepts of space, geometry, structure and construction.

Gaudí's work cannot be understood without an understanding of the society of his time, as Gaudí and Barcelona are an indivisible binomial. There is a singular mix in Barcelona, and particularly in the Eixample district, where much of Gaudí's work is found. On the one hand, there is Gaudí's creativity, which does not follow the academic tradition, and the technical solutions he devised by experimenting with limited resources and new materials, in the manner of a scientist, in response to the new needs of the city at the end of the 19th century. And on the other, there is the rationality of Ildefons Cerdà in his conception of this neighbourhood. These two men complemented each other and between them created the unrivalled appearance of our city.

Gaudí synthesised everything he knew of the French and German schools of geometry and construction, and the information he had on developments in aesthetics in Britain and Austria, and in this way arrived at an independent, singular and innovative architecture that was technically and artistically unlike anything being produced in Europe at that time. This is made clear by the studies on his work, which demonstrate that Gaudí was a creator in all areas, a creator who saw his work as a constant challenge and who was ready at all times to seek out new languages and new alternatives for his architecture.

This exhibition gives us an opportunity to discover precisely this aspect of Gaudí: the new idioms and the new solutions that this brilliant architect arrived at, inspired by his passion for the forms of nature and by his constant search for an original style of his own.

Joan Clos
Mayor of Barcelona