Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (June 25th 1852 – June 10th 1926)
Gaudí was a Spanish architect. He designed some extravagant buildings in and around Barcelona. His most well known work is the Sagrada Familia. Gaudi is considered as one of the founders of the organical architecture. His style is called ‘Modernisme Catala’ in Catalonia. 

When Gaudi was 17 years old, he went to Barcelona to study architecture and worked for different architects to pay for his maintenance. Although he wasn’t an excellent student, he did draw attention to himself with some remarkable designs. When he finally graduated in 1878, the director of the school said: "He aprobado a un loco o a un genio"(I graduated a fool or a genius).
 
Maecenas Guell

In this period, the European architecture was changing from the sober neoclassical style to the more open Romantic style.
Gaudi found inspiration in the old architecture but didn’t want to copy it, as was done a lot during these days. The effect was that he only got the, provided by the government, ‘Casa Calvet price’ once. It seemed that Gaudi suffered because of this lack of acknowledgement. The government might not have acknowledged his talent, the Maecenas Eusebi Gell I Bacigalupi did. Guell liked the sketches that Gaudi made for the World’s Fair of 1888 and gave the young architect assignments, under which the now world-famous Palau Guell and Park Guell.
 
Catalonian

Gaudi was Catalonian and a member of the ‘Centre Excursionista’, a group of young people that visited as much historical places of Catalonia as possible. Gaudi preferred speaking the forbidden language of Catalonian and even used this language to the construction workers although it had to be translated for them first. He refused to change his way of life.
 
Sagrada Familia


Nowadays the Sagrada Familia, designed by Gaudi, is one of the most famous churches of Spain. At first, the assignment to built a church for the holy family (sagrada familia) was given to an architect for whom Gaudi worked as a student, but he pulled back. Joan Martorell would take over the challenge but refused. Why the, at that moment, not very familiar architect Gaudi got the assignment then to build the church isn’t clear, but he made the church famous. From the age of 20 till the age of 30, Gaudi had been a member of the freemasons, but after rediscovering his Catholic faith he distanced himself from this membership. In 1914 he devoted all his time to the Sagrada Familia and sometimes collected money by going by the doors in order to finish his project. During the last years of his life he even lived at the construction site Compared to other architects of his time, Gaudi was very practical. He often made maquettes to test the strength of a construction, instead of spending a lot of time on his sketches.
For this reason, after his death there was little available to base the church on. Because of this and the fact that he had very small (often too small) safety margins, the Sagrada Familia is still being built today. Despite the extravagant looks of the church, Gaudi mostly used relatively cheap and locally available material, such as brickstones. The mosaics were made from fragments that were waste of ceramic companies.
 
Tragic death

On June 7th of 1926, Gaudi was hit by a tram while making a walk through the city. Three days after the incident Gaudi died. His funeral was a big happening with mourning people over 1 km. He is buried in a crypt of the Sagrada Familia.