Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

Against Barcelona? Gaud, the City, and Nature Author(s): Josep Miquel Sobrer Source: Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Vol. 6 (2002), pp. 205-219 Published by: Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20641605 . Accessed: 11/11/2013 17:59
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies and Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Arizona are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

?m? Against Gaudi and Barcelona? the Nature ? City, M??\ W

a Josep Miquel Sobrer is Pro fessor ofCatcdan and Span ishin the Department of^Span ish and Portuguese at Indi
ana

i L'escriptura de Desclot Muntaner (Barcelona 1978), andLa. doble soledatd'y?usias March (Barcelona 1987), He isoho works. among other the editor of Catalonia, a Self-Portrait (Bloomington serves as 1992). He currently
co-editor ^Catalan Review.

thorof 11 ?pica de la realitat;

University.

He

is the au

aiq | /' acily, the Sagrada Fam?lia. Once completed, if all goes | $/^, to plan, themass will look like a mountain in the ) cording t?lM/;./,|' of tKe L t middle of the city. The mountainous appearance A was intentional from its conception and is cex^?^s building !
As his biographer Gijs van Hensbergen reports, the architect joined the Associaci? Catalana d'Excursions ? E ^' an to the in devoted 1879, Cient?fiques organization study of mountains (92). Gaudis interest in mountains contin-

of Barcelona,you will Montju?c, across the rooftops see theemerging mass of thechurch of the Holy Fam-

f you

look North

from the fortress mountain

of

[Wh

j ?

ofAntoniGaudi (1852-1926). trai in the spatialthinking

' \T()j^^'t-? '

ued as he developed his ideas of nature (orNature) as^ppP^k*!

teacher. Notions purity abound

^ffifti^j MS ||> 1

career (Sobrer). ?Ki??U I

Barcelona

of the mountain as a place of origin and in the literature contemporary with Gaudis

' ,:, *

J|'-'m^? u* \?0

Montju?c

and worship me"). The Sagrada Fam?lia, once completed, |? would triangulate the terrain. The end of the nineteenth if. century saw the emergence of plans for erecting some sort |/ ?l?^I^ a the basilica of the Sacr? Coeur, or Sacred Heart, on a

to \ Tibidabo (a reference Matthew 4.9, when thedevil says ^^Ty'! toChrist: "All these/ will giveyou, ifyou will falldown JvM/

sits at the foot of two guardian mountains: and the peak of the Collserola range known as

of vigilantchurchoverlooking crowdedmetropolis.A JJ was made in 1870 inParisfortheconstruction of SrP?|-r 1 proposal || legedposition at thevery top ofMontmartre and fund-^f?felfl PaulAbadie designed raising began in 1873.The architect ||S^
style. The first stone privi- P^^j

'

the church in the Roman-Byzantine

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural StudiesVolume 6, 2002 I

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

206 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

was laid in 1875 and the basilica was com in 1914 and consecrated Its dominant after the can location capitalize: Ventura Pons's Food Love and Susan Seidelman's Gaudi Af of ternoons have been released in the "Gaudi Year" of 2002. In itsmonumentality, the a an outburst Sagrada Fam?lia is triumph, of imagination and playfulness. The visi tor cannot fail to admire the mixture of recent films

pleted war in 1919.

be easily exploited, as the Nazis did fa in their propaganda newsreels mously when

Heart

Gothic

the Expiatory Temple of the Sacred the building was atop Tibidabo; in the neo designed by Enric Sagnier

on

they took over Paris. Barcelona soon followed suit, erecting its own mountain top basilica. In 1902, construction began

religious and natural motifs in the church's decoration: columns resting atop sculpted sea turtles, gargoyles in the shape of snails, stony bunches of grapes crowning tow ers. A life-size tree, made of stone and are drawn

was to style and clearly meant near and far. Land for impress onlookers the temple had been given to the Salesian order of San Giovanni Bosco in 1886. The other

mosaic,

in expiatory temple the is Barcelona, Sagrada Fam?lia, being built in the city barely above sea level; it is to be a mountain itself rather than sit Fam?lia?work on attracted uni on one. The which Sagrada in 1882?has

the emblem of ing that it has become Barcelona much as the Eiffel Tower has become the emblem of Paris, at least in of totalizing imagination travelers. wonder-seeking Yet the success is touristic, that is to say, a laic success. The actual significance of the Sagrada Fam?lia stands in some sort intent, which atonement for societal its purported religious was one of or expiation sins. On the sur the popular,

people cathedral because of its grandiose propor tions. In any case, the church is so impos

hovers over one portal. Indeed, to a calling the church

began versal fame. Leaving aside its status as a world-class architectural landmark, the attracts the attention of Fam?lia Sagrada students of cultural phenomena and of scholars interested in the relations be tween culture and as well physical space as, more particularly, between Gaudi and The relations between the

of tension with

Barcelona.

Sagrada Fam?lia and the city that houses it present a paradigmatic process worthy of attention. Busloads

face at least, this tension entails a contra diction, as today's laic signification of the to the Sagrada Fam?lia appears opposed

flockto theSagradaFam?liadaily and pay

the price of admission to take a closer look; the revenue thus generated reverts in great

of camera-toting

tourists

Yet it is thatprogramof buildingto life.

expiation which is responsible for the con tinuation of thework in today's Barcelona.

expiatory

program

that brought

the

To

of the works. part to the continuation of the tourists become enthusiasts; Many a web search on Fam?lia" pro "Sagrada

vival?and Catalan

be sure, the building owes its concep re tion to the highest ideals of religious to patriotic renascence. The Renaixen?a of themid-nineteenth

duces a number of giddy sites online, with detailed pictures taken from gravity-de can feel the awe that fying positions. One the building inspires, an awe on which

Catalan

the emerging community, in its will to nationhood, deemed the protection of the language to be essential, thereby

century was mostly a literary phenom enon, but itwas literary in the sense that

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Josep Miquel Sobrer

its literature as a political wager. Representative of Renaixen?a cultural poli casting

207
Of course, in the fourteenth century, was indistinguishable from social religion life. In the twentieth century, the new to emerge thanks to masses. Gaudi myriad contributions of the himself, in his fund-raising efforts, spoke of sacrifice, of giving "til it hurts" as he runs of gathered contributions from all "cathedral" was

ticswere the poetic contests known as Joes Florals, inwhich aspiring as well as estab that lished authors presented works treated one of three accepted themes: Fe, home country, love. P?tria, Amor?faith, the three, love was a concession to lit and erary tradition. The other two?Fe

Of

the conception of the P?tria?impregnate ar and much of Gaudis Fam?lia Sagrada

chitecture.

Nevertheless, the success of Gaudi's architecture is as agnostic as it is non-na intention was to create a tional. The the tradi temple that would modernize tion of the gothic cathedrals of Europe, be the work of generations, and stand at once as a

the Sagrada Fam?lia society. Consequently was to was not to have any side chapels; it be a democratic or even a populist "cathe dral": "la catedral dels pobres," as Joaquim Mir depicted it in a famous painting. In a no less famous Maragall wealthy generosity of the appealed not to be outdone them urging article, to the the poet Joan

spiritual and literal beacon for the community. Its highest tower, we are told, will bear a cross visible from all

been the wonder-seeking masses, the new pilgrims called tourists, who have ulti mately spearheaded the financing building. The

by the less privileged in theirgiving to the temple(Maragall706). In fact, ithas

of the

arm will be capable of angles, and each a beam of emitting light. The Sagrada tower over the is?to Fam?lia was?and city of Barcelona, to be seen from any di rection, and to symbolize the faith of the Catalans. Before we rush to proclaim that the late nineteenth and, even more, the twentieth centuries are no longer ages of faith, and that such a project is in some sense anachronistic Barcelona mind (particularly does not appear to be an espe since

irony of the transformation has affected theway the citizens of Barcelona, and in particular its intellectuals, view and

value

War,

that the great gothic cathedrals of were built out of social ostenta Europe tion as much as out of faith.The works of such great cathedrals as Burgos or Le?n, or the Barcelona cathedral for that mat

cially pious city),we ought to keep in

and even though the ideological im petus that gave rise to the Sagrada Fam?lia may no longer hold sway, construction
goes on. Construction goes on, moreover,

the church. Although Gaudi, its chief architect, died in 1926, and al were though detailed plans destroyed by the vandalism that accompanied the Civil

monument who

faith is slowlycoming intobeing.This

rises in a city ofmerchants and industrialists, artisans and workers, people by and

indifferent to the changes that come with the passing of time. In todays rushed and a monument to Catholic skeptical work,

or even by the noble bourgeois families who would then see one of the side chap els bearing their name special saint of theirs. and devoted

ter, proceeded

thanks to the monies

lent

to a

large consider themselves, of surely rightly, the most "European" a In the Fam?lia way, Spaniards. Sagrada is being built against Barcelona, but itwas

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

208 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

also conceived against Barcelona. And yet, it is in Barcelona that this anachronistic man-made mountain symbol of Barcelona is one of the paradoxes Fam?lia. The most ?which one rect many since itwas is rising. And as a it now stands. This of the Sagrada

Catholic left, find Subirachsswork, and

Sagrada Fam?lia comple As an architectural tion, wrongheaded. historian and Gaudi scholar bluntly put it tome: "Subirachss work iskitsch." Such a statement typifies aesthetic attitudes that implies is beauti a indeed thewhole

famous part of the church consider the only original built under Gaudis di Nativity portal, is to urban pollution. laboriously goes up, it is

go against the grain, but also static, absolute notion of what

As

supervision?the already decaying due

owns the site; Archbishopric of Barcelona its Construction headed by Committee, the architect Joan Jordi Berg?s iTejero, is The Subirachs has sculptor Josep Maria taken charge of the iconographie repre
that cover the new construc

or lemically, anachronistically, according to the basic dictates of its conception? Fe, P?tria. A private foundation within the

the temple to erode, beginning although its physical seems slower than that of decomposition its meaning. Construction goes on, po

of Seville is not also kitsch. Indeed, can most church art, typically designed to awe the masses, the label? What escape a work of art is survival, The detractors of todays con oldness, age. tinuation of the Sagrada Fam?lia have or "dekitchifies" ganized

ful and, ultimately, true. One might ques such an opposition, tion, opposing whether such a religious monument as, main in the the cathedral say, altarpiece

in charge of the continuation

and have public demonstrations engaged the speaking abilities of well known intellectuals, such as the late Joan Brossa. at a Brossa, an avant-garde poet and artist, made the headlines after he spoke

of thework.

sentations

tion. To work and has moved

Subirachs has abandoned

the Sagrada Fam?lia all other projects his residence to the site of

on

Fam?lia.

of rally decrying the nomination Subirachs as chief sculptor for the Sagrada Alternative

for the temple contemporary

the building, exactly as Gaudi did towards the end of his life. Subirachss sculptures

a number of incorporate traits. His characteristic importantly, his to other Gaudi

contests for completing of the temple in non traditional ways have been held as well. To the eyes of these detractors, a radical the construction re-design might well solve the contradic toFe and tion of completing a monument

more sharp edges and,

P?tria

plentiful referentiality works, are the stone equivalent of inter ex textuality. On the Passion portal, for

shape of the air vents atop Gaudi's Casa Mil?, located in another part of Barcelona's Eixample. Still, Subirachss work remains well within Catholic A number als, mainly orthodoxy. of Barcelona intellectu

soldiers leading Jesus ample, the Roman to the cross sport helmets in the exact

community of business and tour operators. These protests, however, have one died down in recent years. Whether global agrees with them or not, the Juggernaut of the construction continues. Its scope alone awakens admiration, however reluc tant. admire Ultimately, the Barcelonese success, and the Sagrada Fam?lia undoubt

in a city that has arguably lost its faith and that has secured a place in the

those associated with the non

I was young, the city's edly "sells." When emblematic construction, by some sort of

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Josep Miquel Sobrer

informal consensus, monument, the work was the Columbus Soldevila's "L'Art d'ensenyar the addressee is a Barcelonese

209
Barcelona," citizen who

at the foot of the Rambla, World's Fair of 1888, constructed for the

in the non-negligible world of tourism is built around Gaudi. In most visitor's itin eraries the great Gothic the Barcelona Cathedral constructions of and Santa Maria

of architect Gaiet? Bu?gas and the the sculptor Rafael Atch?. Nowadays is the of emblem the city's architecture and the city's reputation Fam?lia, Sagrada

man

needs to guide a visiting if fictional Ger a family, the Kaufmanns, who desire tour. This is how Soldevila in complete structs his host to introduce Gaudi's work: ?You have followed the Passeig de When you reach La PEDRERA you give thema resigned smile and point. ?What's that??The Kaufmannswill Gr?cia.
intone as a chorus.

delMar play secondfiddleto theSagrada Fam?liaor theParkGiiell.

The banner of "Gaudinism" was one of the recent opposition construction of the of the weapons church. Given

?We

to the continued

detailed plans the destroyed during Spanish Civil War, today's completion, some claim, is a sham. But today Gaudi?and all that the were name Gaudi has come to virtually untouchable; would be to decry Barcelona, if not Catalonia. Thus, any protest against the to be Sagrada Fam?lia has waged under the pretense of purism. This is a new twist in the paradoxical reverberations between a city and its preeminent building. Before the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, however, opposition to the con struction was a fact of life. Barbs were art itself.The the architect also became a caricature to represent?is decry Gaudi

that Gaudi's

more than twenty existencefor years, and yetwe Barcelonese do not quite knowwhat to make of it.
?But...it surely must serve some pur

renot yet quite sure?you may tell them.?The building has been in

pose?
[..j

?It's

the work of an architectof un questionable genius butwith a highly youwill, take personal taste.Let us, if a look at another of his works, LA SAGRADA FAMILIA, a cathedralstill under construction. And let us be done with thisunavoidable chapter.

(2D1

Soldevilas

account

includes no men

aimed at Gaudi's

figure of the butt of many

mistakenlycalling theGaudi building a

cathedral. Soldevila tourist-attraction clearly accepts the value of Gaudi's work

tion of religious

significance other than

a in the satirical press. While had poet of the stature of Joan Maragall defended the construction and, in fact, worked most decidedly to give it popular and institutional supporr, other relevant intellectuals had opposed it. Shortly after Gaudi's death, the fashionable playwright and essayist Carles Soldevila wrote a good humored and elegant text on the occa sion of Barcelona's 1929 World's

and begrudgingly bestows on the archi tect the epithet of genius. He is less gen erous a few lines later: On the way, under questioning from theKaufmanns, youwill have to ex Barcelona has had the mis plain that fortune to have a good part of its Eixample built to follow thebeat of theso-called Modernisme.Towards the

Fair. In

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

210 Arizona Journal ofHispanicCultural Studies

end of thenineteenthcentury,itaban doned the moderate norms ofneoclas sicism that had given birth to the dox among themany paradoxes that seem to accompany the urban presence of the Sagrada Fam?lia. The pre-war such writers critique of Gaudi as Soldevila has been by ex

Marianao and Planas Palaces and the house called El Cano and so on, and got entangled in the creation of an without prece original architecture

dent, and oftenwithout grace. You tellthemthis without pedantry, nicely, without a shadow of disdain forpre
vious

plores a blemish inone s own family. (21-22) Soldevila s jabs against Gaudi's work are sharpened by his condescending tone. His rejection might have been unpopu lar, but itwas not unique among intellec tuals. Before the end of the Civil War,

generations,

the way

one

plained by reference to cultural trends of a the times. Gaudi, of representative Catalan Modernisme, would be seen nega tively by theNoucentistes, successors and

de

opponents of the former. Carles Soldevila career under the began his writing aegis ofNoucentisme, a word coined by Eugeni d'Ors to differentiate themovement from Accepted critical opinion has and Noucentisme as opposites,

Modernisme. Modernisme Noucentistes

an oppositionbelligerently posited by the

themselves. According to this would be internation would and non-religious, while be local, traditional, inspired. The polarity

In George Orwell blasted against Gaudi. a famous passage of his to Cata Homage lonia, Orwell writes:

view, Modernisme alist, bohemian, Noucentisme and

For thefirsttime since I had been in went tohave a look at the Barcelona I
cathedral?a modern cathedral, and

classically Modernisme-Noucentisme

has more recently come under fire; for some scholarsNoucen tisme is simply a continuation ofModer nisme. Others have sought in its own terms. to define the to According

one of the most hideous buildings in the world. Ithas fourcrenellatedspires exactly the shape of hock bottles. Unlike most of the churches in was not Barcelona it damaged during
the revolution?it was

movement a seminal Barcel?, stand:

article by Josep Murgades we must under Noucentisme by

of its 'artistic value,' people said. I think the Anarchists showedbad tasteinnot blowing it up when they had the chance, though theydid hang a red and black banner between itsspires.

spared because

tipificalesaspiracions h?g?moniques dels nuclis m?s actius de la burgesia

catalana, postula els seus interessos en

el fenom?n ideologie que, entre el 1906 i el 1923 aproximadament,

(225)

For Orwell unaesthetic

the Sagrada Fam?lia was so as to deserve obliteration. In

un p?a ideal i [...] formulamodels i projectes que [...] contribueixen a

establir

anarchists' putative respect on artistic grounds might be another para

built against see later.The

not know or stop terestingly,Orwell did to reflect that the was Sagrada Fam?lia the anarchists, as we shall

cial tendentsa possibilitar laviabilitat

d'una accio reformista. (39-40)

pautes

de comportament

so

With

this rather cumbersome

defi

reacts nition Murgades against previous definitions that sawNoucentisme dynamic

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Josep Miquel Sobrer

as the reaction, with all pertinent anxi a move eties, to the earlierModernisme, ment of international inspiration akin, in Recent the plastic arts, to Art Nouveau. criticism has Modernisme ment, against views of as an isolated, Catalan move reacted

211
lutions as the parabolic arch and the in clined column. These were his engineer ing contributions as the flaw ofGothic to

saw solving what he architecture: the need

and have sought to explain it in a context international wider, (Epps). too warns the against simplic Murgades

to support a structure with external ele ments such as flying buttresses. His engi

neered solutions could achieve the height that is the mark of Gothic architecture such structural crutches. Gaudi of his architecture in terms of to conceived

without

ityof views thatwould make Noucentisme a reactionary response to the essentially progressive and internationalist attitudes of Modernistes. cal terms. He

synthesis and solution. Similar arguments could be made apply associated with Noucentisme: or the confluence to Gaudi

in his analysis to to the identify five traits?corresponding most famous of the terms (Murgades calls them "fetish-words") put in vogue by Eugeni d'Ors: noucentisme, imp?rialisme, arbitrarisme, classicisme, civiltat. Curiously Gaudi, who seems to have been theNou centistes embarrassment Noucentisme, if not b?te noire, evinces all five of the "traits." the first and most "suc

shouldbe defined in social and ideologi

goes on

ForMurgades, Noucentisme

the other "fetish-words"

imp?rialisme of power and aesthet of ics; arbitrarisme or the predominance the role played by the artist; civiltat or the centrality of the city of Barcelona as in de Catalunya," still hears; and or the return to the norm. that one in the direc believe quite that the Sagrada Rather than becom i Casal

P?tria?"Cap the slogan classicisme Gaudi

was at least bowing tion of classicismewhen he?I

dora de totes les ideologies existents, com a portadora d'una panacea universal" (45). Gaudi certainly conceived of his work as a panacea and a culmination, a superado or improvement on all preexisting architec

cessful" term, implies, forMurgades, the com a supera ideology "de presentar-se

earnestly?claimed Fam?lia was Greek.

Modernisme-Noucen ing entangled in the tisme opposition, we might do better to consider Gaudi s work, and that of his detractors, as elements in a continuum that engulfs bothModernisme andNoucentisme. Gaudis his Sagrada understood by reference to twomovements outside of the Modernista-Noucentista de and, most especially, Fam?lia may be more clearly work

tural styles. An anecdote published by Gaudi's disciple, Isidre Puig Boada, can illustrate this. A viewer of the Sagrada Fam?lia observed to Gaudi: "Us ha sortit molt g?tica." Gaudi is said to have replied: "Ben al contrari. ?s grega." Greek? One can sense theNoucentistes at the cringing I believe, was thought. Yet Gaudi, joking in The "accusation" of Gothi part. only cism has to do with Gaudi's

bate, and outside of strictly Catalan cul ture. One is international and relates to the above-mentioned the arbitrarisme; other is local and relates to imp?rialisme. The Modernistes laid claim to an interna tional outlook distinguish the eminently ruralist "Renaixen?a."2 The international Modernista bent was influ in their stated attempts to themselves, as moderns, from

interest in

great height for the Sagrada Fam?lia and with his reliance in his work on such so

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

212 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

enced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and more particularly by the doctrines and practice ofWilliam Morris. To put it in very general of industrialization quences mechanization terms, one of the conse was the century modernism has shown a tendency towards dematerialization, towards the over the of the ideological hegemony material. Le Corbusier and, (1887-1965) even more van der Rohe Mies radically, a (1886-1969) brought architecture to stark simplicity, with sobriety of line and the absence of the decorative emblema

of trade with

the conse

quent weakening, even to the point of dis appearance, of the artisanal world. Mor to protect and re ris, and Gaudi, sought vive this world, their modernity looking to the past as much as to the future. Glassie In his book, Material writes: Culture, Henry

William Morris toldus tocease think expressionof ingof art as the rarefied amystically talentedfew,or as thepe

men. He ar culiar possession of rich is work that the mother of art. gued

ing for the fact that he was older than his colleagues. For Gaudi, architecture is akin to the a Wagnerian congealing of number of crafts: stone and iron, tile, painting, furniture, bell making, and so on. One even say that Gaudi is a symphony might is chamber music. Gaudi's where Mies modernity to which Gaudi's is evolutionary rather than A arises and that revolutionary. question we shall return is whether modernity is also reactionary. The use of broken pieces of glazed as "abstract" mosaics architectural decorating element?a tech term the Catalan

tizing the modern building. Gaudi's mo dernity is quite different, even account

70) (Glassie

Here we

see the notion of art as craft, fit ting perfectly the slogan theNoucentistes associated with their arbitrarisme: "L'obra

ceramic a

ben feta," the well-made work. Against Glassie, one could argue that for all the noble intentions of Morris, the arts and entails a further appro priation by the bourgeoisie of the "popu lar" and, in some respects, a further in crafts movement crease in the alienation of the poor. What ever the case, it is undoubtable thatGaudi shared Morris's cent

counter popular technique, decidedly cultural. Employing rejected or discarded materials from both construction and home Gaudi mal

known nique by trencadis?is a case in point. Trencadis is a

given

ideals. Indeed, in his re van Hens biography of Gaudi, Gijs on Gaudi's indebtedness bergen remarks to the ideas of Morris 94). We Hensbergen Gaudi's populism. (van shall return later to and Ruskin

(broken saucers, for example), often relegated the actual applica tion of trencadis to craftsmen with no for

architectural training. In symbolic terms, trencadis exalts the poor, the bro ken, the outcast; in artistic terms, it cre ates an illusion. Trencadis makes a purse

out of a sow's ear, so to speak, and thus defines the artist as illusionist and (re)creator. Trencadis is a perfect material it elevates the lowly into the metaphor: lofty; itmakes one of the broken many. Another adaptation of popular?or at least was non-academic?techniques the famed maqueta funicular,

Modernisme

of some predecessors, such as Geoffrey Ribbans, and has striven to place Catalan at once

Brad Epps has developed thework

in and against the context of international Western modern ism. In architecture certainly, twentieth

a system

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Josep Miquel Sobrer

Gaudi used to design the parabolic or cat enary arches and vaults of his buildings (an emblematic example of the design The most famous

213
result of the fu

convent being the arches of theTeresianes in Barcelona, from 1888-90). This may a not be strictly "popular" technique since, as far as I know, itwas invented by Gaudi himself, but it can be considered never theless as consonant with the hands-on system con spirit of craftsmanship. The

nicular design technique can be found in to be what many cognoscenti believe Gaudis the the for masterpiece, design chapel Coloma at the Col?nia de Cervello, G?ell in Santa near Barcelona. Like

the Sagrada Fam?lia, rhe Colonia chapel a moun the takes overall of design shape

catena) hanging from the ceiling of the or chains were in workshop. The strings turn attached to each other to form a structure. By turning this up mock-up side-down, Gaudi calculated the shape of the arches and the inclination of the col umns needed to support his structures and consequently eliminated the need for such non-essential
tresses.

sistedof the tying of littlesacksof buck shot (perdigons)to differentlengthsof string (Latinfuniculi) or chain (Latin

tain, not unlike that ofMontserrat which, on a clear can be seen from parts of day, Barcelona. Montserrat rises above a large with plane jagged pinnacles of gray sand stone. It is an

imposing sight that, the has been endowed centuries, through with religious and political symbolism. Atop the mountain, a Benedictine mon astery preserves the cult of theVirgin who has become the patron saint of Catalonia. Montserrat Catalan has also become a center for nationalism, being at once a natu ral fortress and a place of worship. is seen by many as Catalonia's Montserrat

elements as

flying but

Juan Jos? Lahuerta, in his well-docu mented and detailed Antoni Gaudi: Arquitectura, ideologia y pol?tica, dismisses the technique as an example of Gaudi's
anti-intellectualism and, therefore, as re

stony heart. In imitating its jagged shapes, Gaudi's such as the Sagrada buildings,

actionary conservatism. The funicular model, however, just as the simpler cat enary arch designs, is a beautiful example of Gaudi's imagination, of his ability to conceive of a project organically rather than merely or indi intellectually. Directly rectly, it bears a debt toMorris's ideas and is an homage to the creativity of the pre industrial world. Again, the technique has a material value and becomes symbolic metaphor. ensuing

Fam?lia and the chapel at the Colonia transcend their pragmatic ends G?ell, into the mystical. Gaudi eventually de voted himself to the larger of these two projects, the urban one, and he left the suburban

chapel plans unfinished. Gaudi's nevertheless, populism, must be seen in the context of the system of patronage on which he built his career, a patronage that cannot be dissociated from the name of the architect's main employer, was an Eusebi G?ell i Bacigalupi

(1846-1918). The Colonia G?ell chapel

a integral parr of grand capitalist

The catenary arches give the structure the look of a natural

G?ell to createa plan by the industrialist

that formation, and their accumulation of a mountain. The resulting will building be, literally and symbolically, an organic form, a natural formation.

has studied this intriguing topic and has

that would factory town near Barcelona take advantage both of the natural re sources of the Llobregat river and of the isolation of the workers. Dorothy Noyes

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

214 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

to the fore the connections be brought tween capitalist planning and the culture term col?nia of the time. The Catalan sounds more factory town, but the glish equivalent, same: a is the patronizing scheme reality to move workers away from the city to would (where they surely be tempted to to the unionize) and keep them close company store (and to the influence of the Catholic Church and its preachings distinguished than its En the style known Spanish, which combines Christian Arabic decorative elements as Mud?jar, (gothic) and and which of ma which

a combination pointedly employs terials?stone, brick, and tile?in brick walls known

are left uncovered, an effect inCatalan as obra vista. From obra small

vista to trencadis there is but one

step. It was Martorell, by the way, who recommended Gaudi as main architect for the Sagrada Fam?lia after the project, barely was abandoned by its original ar begun, chitect, Francisco de Paula del Villar, to wards the end of 1883. characterizes Juan Jos? Lahuerta Martorells school as presenting "tiempo that is, as creating acumulado," buildings that synthesize diverse architectural styles from different historical

of resignation in the face of material hard sense too that, as Giiells ship). It is in this main collaborator, Gaudi

can be said to

be against Barcelona. Let us now turn to the second of the aforementioned contexts, the local, a con text related to theNoucentistes imp?ria lisme.We tend to see "great figures" or

as isolated monuments whose "geniuses" referent is to the divine. Let us principal however examine thatmake some of the conditions sense of, ifnot explain, Gaudi. This has what Michel become "figure" an "author," as Foucault famously defined that is someone whose name is synony tation of his work. But

finish and Greek-revival

with aMud?jar bining, say,gothic lines

doric columns. The Catalan

periods?com

elements such as

bourgeoisie, to Lahuerta, flocked toMarto according rell with commissions for buildings that, with their "accumulated time," would provide the semblance of historical dura tion, and thus legitimacy. Gaudis patron, Eusebi G?ell, was given the title of Vis G?ell, Gaudi

mous with a holistic and closed

interpre let us look at this

taner (1850-1923) and the lesser known Camil Oliveras, Gaudi was a member of i the circle of architect Joan Martorell Montells one allows Martorell was, if (1833-1906). the oxymoron, a conservative

author, this "figure," in his local context. i Mon Along with Lluis Dom?nech

most of his famous designed on Carrer Nou de la buildings: the palace at the the Colonia G?ell Rambla, chapel in Santa Maria de Cervello, and the now famous Park G?ell to an
sion.3

count byKing AlfonsoXIII in 1918. For

revolutionary. He reacted against the imi tative style of an earlier generation, ofmen architect of the neo-Romanesque down town Barce of the of University building

to lure buyers English-style high-income subdivi architects of the school of

thatwas

The Barcelona

such as Elies Rogent (1821-1897), the

contributed to the ennoblement

of the Catalan

in his build lona (1863-89). Martorell, to referor return to a type of wanted ings, he considered architecture essentially

bourgeoisie. For good or for ill, the collaboration between archi tects and the was a symbiotic, bourgeoisie creative relationship. The works created architects

by the Barcelona

show a rich

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Miquel Sobrer Josep

as Lahuerta originality. Leftist critics such tend to downplay the artistic innovation of the Catalan El proyecto era colosal, un bosque de
torres levant?ndose sobre Barcelona,

215

(ennobled at bourgeoisie the time by the restored Spanish monar chy). Such critics may be misled by al to influ lowing their political judgments ence their views. Not it comes equal when tectural styles, as is evident by comparing the work of Gaudi, Dom?nech, and oth ers with that of their contemporary col to all bourgeois are choosing archi

la ciudad ensombrecida por las pro

testas obreras y las bombas

Gaudi siempre entendi? la Sagrada Familia como un temploexpiatorio de lospecados de laburgues?a y un s?m bolo del triunfo de la cristiandad so bre lascorrientes anticlericales que atra

anarquistas.

vesaban lagranurbe de laRenaixen?a.

(167)

to Go Newport, leagues world-wide. Rhode Island, take the architectural tour, and keep the Barcelona architects inmind as you stroll through the ostentatious vil las erected for the Vanderbilts and their set. Or you might that, with bureaucratic contrast building rather than bour a

Garc?as

minded, m?lia was not meant the bourgeoisie,

assertion is poetic and high but debatable. The Sagrada Fa

came up at about the same geois support, time as the Sagrada Fam?lia, theMadrid post office, the "Palacio de Comunica ciones," built between 1905 and 1918, thework of architectsAntonio Palacios and Joaqu?n Otamendi. This neo-gothic fan tasy is often described as a wedding cake perhaps because it has the color of frost

la Sagrada Fam?lia. Administratively not a cathedral, is the speaking, building its size and the despite popular belief ech de

name is indeed official Temple Expiatori

to expiate the sins of at least not primarily. Its

oed by Carles Soldevila, George Orwell, and so many others. The name "temple" tends to be given to church buildings that do not quite fit the regular division of places of worship within the Catholic sys tem, that is, the cathedral and the many a parishes of city.The erection of a temple

even the taste. Nor has ing, and maybe Barcelona itself escaped the bane of "offi cial" architecture, an example being the now Palau Nacional, also on Montju?c, art Catalan medieval collections. housing The above nivance nouveaux between is not to deny the con the Catalan bourgeoisie

of Josep Maria i Bocabella who had formed (1815-1892), Verdaguer the "Asociaci?n Espiritual de Devotos de dream-child San Jos?" and published its periodical, El a la de Devoci?n San Jos?. The Propagador aim of the and therefore explicit Josefins, of the temple, was to combat the perceived sins of the exalted proletariat, specifically of the anarchists, who had often turned violent

to the Holy Family inBarcelonawas the

andModernista

their businesses, their factories, and the workers therein. Nonetheless, architecture would

theirtitlesor by theirarchitects but by

architecture. After all, the nobles were supported not by

historian
writes:

a role in or at play controlling, to control, the social unrest that tempting the bourgeoisie feared. In a recent book, Fernando Garc?a de Cort?zar

in their wrath against clerics and of places worship. There had been waves of church and convent burnings throughout Spain, but most since themid intensely inCatalonia, 1830s, a time known as "el p?riode de les the era of riots. The most bullangues,"

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

216 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

famous of the violent anticlerical outbursts was of course Tragic Week," As Joan Ullman has explained in her clas sic book about theTragic Week, the fam ished working class saw in the regular the of an oppressive po defenders clergy litical and economic system. Furthermore, in the conventual industries, cottage women and families saw direct the "Setmana Tr?gica," or of July 26-August 1, 1909. cent to the cross nave by theNativity por a an under arch shows the shape tal, capital a man of clothed with the cotton overalls of the textile worker unadorned worker and shod with or the rope-soled shoes espardenyes, associated also with theworking class. The

receives a gift from a dragon fig ure, clearly an emblem of the devil. The gift is nothing once less than a bomb.

working and unfair competition forwhatever little income they could hope supplementary from such jobs as laundry, baking, or embroidery. Convent burning thus be came an all too usual outlet for thework

to the past?to the Catholic tradi tion of displacing to the church cloister to the any figures of the demonic?and time of direct action and

The figureof thedevil bringsus at

contemporary

ing poor inmoments of intense crisis, such as the one sparked by the disastrous Mo roccan war, the to pro military attempt tect

bomb-throwing. The "temps acumular" is here put to the service of political ide ology. The sculpted worker carries a bomb, of the type known as Orsini, such as an archists

Africa, begun in 1904 and marked by

and the Josefins, costly defeats. Bocabella for their part, saw in the figure of Saint humble carpenter who ac Joseph?the cepted themiracle of the incarnation with out questions?the opposite of the bomb arsonist anarchist. The new throwing, temple would expiate, or atone for, anar chist sins, thus its name. in 1884 Gaudi When of the works Villar's took over the

Spanish

mining

interests in North

actually threw. The anarchist Santiago Salvador, during an 1893 per formance of Guglielmo Tell, tossed two Orsini bombs onto the main floor of the Liceu, the Barcelona opera house and bas tion of the bourgeoisie. One of the bombs

direction abandoned

contrast with Gaudi's

crypt, the only Villar design built, evinces a conventional neo-gothic style inmarked work. Our archi

of the temple, he plans. The temple's

a number of fatalities. exploded, causing The second, as it happened, fell on the one of the opera goers. The lap of unexploded bomb has been preserved in the Barcelona museum of the history of the city and immortalized Fam?lia. well in the Sagrada

?as

tect assumed nevertheless the political over aims of the conservative Josefins.The powering iconography of the place cel ebrates the triumph of the Church Mys tical and of theHoly Family of Jesus,Mary, and Joseph. More explicitly, Gaudi incor

growth of in both benefited and contrib from dustry uted to theweakening of local agriculture. such as the spread of Developments chemical fertilizers and the massive im portation of raw cotton, mostly from the the economy and the USA, destabilized ecology, of theCatalan countryside. Driven by hardship, Catalan country folk flocked

tensive textile sector. The

In the nineteenth century, Catalonia as Euskadi?experienced rapid industrialization, mostly in the labor-in

visited area, which

one clear porated at least signal of Catho lic reformism in the building. In a little forms a cloister adja

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Josep Miquel Sobrer

to the city and fed its already large work class. Barcelona grew by leaps and ing bounds during the last decades of the cen not a few from Catalonia), the laic society predominant A. Christian

217
and defying in the cities. In societies

tury. Phylloxera?an aphid matters and destroys vine stock?made a to it in halt viticulture worse; brought Catalonia new (as it had done in France) until aphid-resistant American vines could

that feeds on

to thedetailed studyby I refer William

titled Visionaries.

in the process of industrialization, the city is often seen as a siren, luring the inno cent towards vice and suffering,while the country acquires authenticity. The an aura of purity and presumable continuity between city and country is broken, and the polarity established.

be planted and grown tomaturity. A cheap labor force was thus available to the tex tile industry. The population balance The Cuban shifted dramatically. and

Moroccan

wars drafted young men who not could pay for exemption (for a fee of

fifteen hundred pesetas became cannon

zar238]). A good partof the workingclass

fodder in ill-conceived

[Garc?a de Cort?

In Catalonia, the polarity between the city and the country is clear, radical, and decisive; the contrast between the city and the mountain assumes titanic dimen sions. The

military campaigns. The soldiers who re turned saw that their jobs had been taken over by others, mostly women, whose sala ries were even lower. Anarchism in Cata

antithesis carries into the psy and corresponds to the realm, chological of Self and Other. Let me pause dynamic to comment on my use of the word here In Catalan, means "muntanya" both a mountain, an actual mass, and the wilds in general; itmight be translated as "wilderness." mountain.

lonia grew accordingly. Members of the a Church that revival thought spiritual could solve the social problem. The ar chitect Gaudi Whenever felt the call of a higher faith. rapid industrialization

In literary artifacts of the time both meanings blend, and the sense of "mountain" is used metonymically for

occurs, the imagination of a people is al tered. Typically, a pastoral ideal reemerges. The countryside, often emblematized by the mountain,

is idealized as its reality is debased. Leo Marx, in TheMachine in the studied a similar phenomenon England writers of themid similar dynamic of took place

seen as the producer of a particular flora and fauna, as well as of a particular people. The Catalans are children of the Pyrenees, of Montseny, of Montserrat, poetically same time, the moun At the speaking. tain congeals the imagination of its poets,

of lifethroughitsgeology; it is thoughts

the countryside. The mountain

invokes

Garden,

affecting New nineteenth century. A idealization

much as theAndes ofMachu Picchu

brought about Pablo Neruda's majestic Canto general. In any case, in the 1840s, the Catalan mythical imagination began to revolve around the polarity mountain/ city and polarity of the Renaixen?a logical focus well
tury.

and debasement

in the Basque country, although there its realization was less literary than religious. The countryside of Euskadi was also in creasingly alienated from the industrial centers of Bilbo-Barakaldo, Eibar, and Donostia. A number of mystical sightings mountains, attracting many viewers (and

its corollary nature/man. Such informs most Catalan literature and remains an ideo into the twentieth cen

of the Virgin Mary occurredin the Basque

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

218 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

In this dynamic, idealization con stituted the first trend. Life in the moun the possibility of purity. Ro nature was the Self, the city mantically, the Other. The emergent bourgeoisie and tains held middle classes could tomake the citymore like nature. Gaudi's

the shape of a mountain, and specifically Catalonia's sacred mountain, Montserrat, home of La Moreneta, the famed black vir gin who is the patron saint of Catalonia. In addition to its condition as mystical

finished buildingwas (and is) to be in

only feel nostalgia for the open spaces, given the environment they had created for themselves and their the crowded, polluted, noisy, artificial city.Most of modern Catalan lit erature deals at one time or another with

workers:

spot (remember Saint Ignatius Loyola had in itsmonastery), spent time meditating Montserrat had been identified as the mythical castle ofWagner's Parsifal, the almost homophonous Montsalvat (Solde

the quest for a return to a mythical Arcadia, a lost paradise which can only be regained through civilization. In the early twentieth century, the values associated with The the city and the country reversed. was no seen as corrupt or city longer the country as idyllic. Still, the city/coun try dynamic continued. The Modernista

vila 32). Wagner, however, had situated in the Pyrenees, right by Cani Montsalvat go, the site of Verdaguer's epic of that name. Closer to home, in 1881, Catalans had celebrated with great hoopla the mil lenary of the discovery, in the heights of Montserrat,
donna.

put essayist Jaume Brossa (1875-1919) it succinctly: "Lhumanisme ?s el triomf de la ciutat sobre la muntanya." The Noucentistes d'Ors, of May picked up the theme. Eugeni their spokesman, titled his glosa 1907 15, "L'arranjament de les

of the image of its black Ma

hi ha prou It begins: "No muntanyes." amb dur l'arbitrarietat als jardins: cal fer la escalar lesmuntanyes." A year after this published, Guerau de Liost is glosa sued his first book of poems, with a fore word by d'Ors himself. Guerau's title: La was

Noucentista

intellectual life for decades, from to the of 1885 Verdaguer's Canig? poetry of Guerau the first and second decades de Liost in of the cen

Catalan

as a locus symboli to the cally opposed city generated a clus ter of that dominated significations The mountain

in tury.The symbolism of the mountain the minds of many Catalan intellectuals obliterates the distinction be virtually ensuing ideo logical and symbolic connections appear as inspiration and motif, as material meta and grand thematic project, ? la Wagner. They involve notions of nation phor individuality, of religion as well as rebellion. Modernistes They affect as well as Noucentistes, and they include Gaudi's his Sagrada work, principally Fam?lia. With so too would donna. Mountain would alism as well as tween text and referent.The

terms ofNoucentismes civiltat. pr?cieux Gaudis architecture fits within the dynamic that we have been examining.

a muntanya dyametistes\his theme: descrip tion of the mountain ofMontseny in the

His Park G?ell might have been what d'Ors had inmind in the glosa cited
above; his Sagrada Fam?lia was to bring themountain to the city in a converse but complementary tion of the wild: where urbanizing move to d'Ors's d'Ors Gaudi civiliza called for wanted

his grand project, the come to the city. And come the mountain's Ma not only atone for the

the mountain,

She would

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Josep Miquel Sobrer

city's sins; her message dience would become of Christian obe

219
Mod Epps, BradleyS. "'Modern and 'Moderno': ernistStudies, 1898, and Spain." Catalan Review 14 (2000): 75-116. Historia de Espa?a; Garc?a de Cort?zar, Fernando. Glassie, Henry.Material Culture. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1999. Antoni Gaudi: Arquitectura, Lahuerta, Juan Jos?.
deAtapuercaaleuro. Barcelona: Planeta, 2002.

andCataloniawould findher Holy Family, cure all its ills. In to Grail find the Holy
the irony of history, however, it has been the city?its affluence and its tourism? that has and Other "redeemed" the mountain.

fertile; she would

Self

continue their dynamic. The remains Barcelona's essen Fam?lia Sagrada a reminder of the mountain: tial artificial complexities and contradictions life. of a city's

ypol?tica.Madrid: Electa, 1993. ideolog?a Joan. "?Una gr?cia de caritatL." Obres Maragall, Vol. completes. 2. Barcelona: Editorial Selecta, 1960.

Notes
11 my own published En quote Soldevila in translation. glish 2 Renaixen?a literaturecontinued to place importanceon non-urban themesand situations

Murgades Barcel?, Josep. "Assaig de revisi? del noucentisme." EhMarges 7 (1976): 35-53. Noyes, Dorothy. "Breaking the Social Contract: El ComteArnau, Violence, and Production in the Catalan Mountains at the Turn of the Century." Catalan Review 14 (2000): 129
58.

well into the end of the century.Bosch de la Trinxerias Lhereu NoradeU, published inBarcelona in 1889, isa good example of theattitude termed The word "pairalista" favored by many artists. and "pairalista"derives from "pairal" ultimately Catalan population, gins of great segmentsof the including the inhabitantsofBarcelona. 3 Thus the word "park" is spelled inEnglish
on main its gate. from "pares'or parents and attests to the rural ori

Orwell, George. Homage toCatalonia. Boston: Beacon, 1952. P?ig Boada, Isidre. El pensament de Gaudi. Barcelona: La Gaia Ci?ncia, 1981. Sobrer, Josep Miquel. "TheMoving Mountain: Aporias of Modern Catalan Ideology." Catalan Review 14 (2000): 173-90. Carles. "TheArt ofShowingBarcelona." Soldevila, Trans, and ed. Josep Catahnia, a Self-Portrait.

Works Cited
William A. Visionaries: the Christian, SpanishRe and the Christ. public Berkeley:U of Reign of California , 1996.

bridge:Harvard UP, 1968. Van Hensbergen, Gijs. Antoni Gaudi. Trans.Anna

Verg?s. Barcelona: Plazayjan?s, 2001.

Miquel Sobrer. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1992. 17-37. Anti Ullman, Joan. The Tragic Week; A Study of clericalism in Spain, 1875-1912. Cam

This content downloaded from 129.119.5.86 on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:59:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions