Beautiful architecture

We are in the centenary year of the death of the great Catalan architect and artist Antoni Gaudí. As I often say, I hope his hometown and his nation celebrate him as his enormous stature deserves. Obviously, not being an architect or anything of the sort, I can only pay tribute to him through a literary exercise, which is what I wrote in the style of autobiographical microfiction.

I owe my love for physical forms to my father, a coppersmith. And I grew up with him and my mother in spiritual devotion. Both qualities forged me, like the iron I loved so much. They, along with my siblings, were the "Holy Family" of my origins.

I loved nature for its organic nature, the simplicity and richness of its forms, from which I learned so much. But also, within it, the Mediterranean character of the space and its combined colors, so noble and elevated, like Byzantine mosaics.

I designed works that satiated my artistic ego, such as the civil projects commissioned by Güel, Batalló, and Comillas; however, the Sagrada Familia was my obsession, if one can use such an un-Christian word. They could have asked me, as Julius II asked Michelangelo regarding the Sistine Chapel, “When will you finish it?” but I wouldn't have answered. Silence has been my pillar.

I simply wanted my Catalonia, so deeply religious, and the immediate future world, if such an expression is appropriate, to experience the project of a spiritual architecture in progress, not static, but rising to heaven without end.