On
Antoni Gaudí
If anybody asks me about
Antoni Gaudí, as an architect, I can
offer no answer but to recognize his
genius. A genius which was often expressed
in bad temper, according to testimonies
that, for me, and indisputable.
If anybody asks me about
his Catholicism, I will have to recognize
that he gave trustworthy signs of it
in his work. Not only with the Sagrada
Familia, where we could say that every
stone has its meaning, but also in other
temples he built, and the famous Pedrera,
which was designed as a monument to
the Virgin Mary, but was left unfinished.
They say that Gaudí
was a convert. If so, he did as most
converts have since St. Paul, including
St. Augustin, Chesterton and Papini:
he was passionate. And while Chesterton
wrote about the lives of saints, and
Papini, a Life of Christ, he gave Christian
meaning to every stone he laid.
Was he a man of heroic
virtues? Only he knew that, and I don't
believe he told anybody. I think the
ecclesiastic tribunal will have to work
hard to fin out, especially if they
want to reach - and they should - the
truth of the issue, the intimate truth
of Antoni Gaudí.
Oriol
Camps
Catalunya Cristiana
30 March 2000
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