Introduction

The first half of the 20^th century was a period of new architectural styles, experiments in design, construction and aesthetics. A number of architects of all the world produced new and bold architecture. Antoni Gaudí was one of them. He was one of the most outstanding architects of this period. His amazing projects strikes to our time.

The Style of Gaudí combined Art Nouveau and Bionics. Also it combined neo-gothic elements and religious symbology.

This work will give extended consideration of Art Nouveau and Bionics in creativity of Antoni Gaudí. It will analyze his individual style.

1 .Antoni Gaudí

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet is a Spanish Catalan

architect. He was born in 1852 in Reus, to the

industrial boilermaker Francesc Gaudí i Serra and

Antònia Cornet i Bertran. He was the youngest

of five children. Gaudí’s family originated in the

Auvergne region in southern France. One of his

ancestors, Joan Gaudí, a hawker, moved to Catalonia

in the 17th century.

Gaudí attended a nursery school run by Francesc Berenguer, whose son, also called Francesc, later became one of Gaudí’s main assistants. He enrolled in the Piarists school in Reus where he displayed his artistic talents via drawings for a seminar called El Arlequín. During this time he worked as an apprentice in the "Vapor Nou" textile mill in Reus. In 1868 he moved to Barcelona to study teaching in the Convent del Carme. In his adolescent years Gaudí became interested in utopian socialism and, together with his fellow students Eduard Toda i Güell and Josep Ribera i Sans, planned a restoration of the Poblet monastery that would have transformed it into a Utopian phalanstère.

Between 1875 and 1878, Gaudí completed his compulsory military service in the infantry regiment in Barcelona as a Military Administrator. Most of his service was spent on sick leave, enabling him to continue his studies.

Gaudí studied architecture at the Llotja School and the Barcelona Higher School of Architecture, graduating in 1878. To finance his studies, Gaudí worked as a draughtsman for various architects and constructors such as Leandre Serrallach, Joan Martorell, Emili Sala Cortés, Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano and Josep Fontserè. In addition to his architecture classes, he studied French, history, economics, philosophy and aesthetics.

The tomb of Antony Gaudi

G audí’s first projects were lampposts

he designed for the Plaça Reial in Barcelona,

the unfinished Girossi newsstands, and

the Cooperativa Obrera Mataronense

(Workers' Cooperative of Mataró) building.

The lampposts

He gained wider recognition for his first important commission, the Casa Vicens, and subsequently received more significant proposals. At the Paris World's Fair of 1878 Gaudí displayed a showcase he had produced for the glove manufacturer Comella. Its functional and aesthetic modernista design impressed Catalan industrialist Eusebi Güell, who then commissioned some of Gaudí’s most outstanding work: the Güell wine cellars, the Güell pavilions, the Palau Güell (Güell palace), the Park Güell (Güell park) and the crypt of the church of the Colònia Güell.

Antony Gaudi’s works:

1883—1888	Casa Vicens
1883—1885	El Capricho
1884—1887	Finca Güell
1886—1889	Güell Palace
1888—1894	School of the Teresian sisters
1889—1893	Bishop’s Palace in Astorga
1891—1892	Casa Botines
1883—	The Sagrada Familia Temple
1895—1898	Güell Cellars
1898—1900	Casa Calvet
1898—1916	Güell Colony Crypt
1900—1902	Ballesguard house
1900—1914	Park Güell
1901—1902	Finca Miralles (Manor Miralles)
1904-1906	Casa Batlló
1904—1919	Reconstruction of the Palma de Mallorca Cathedral
1906—1910	Casa Milà (Mila house)