The Way to Manresa by Brendan McManus SJ

Author:Brendan McManus, SJ
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO018000, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Religious, REL012070, RELIGION / Christian Life / Personal Growth, Christian memoir, Ignatian spirituality, European settings for memoirs
ISBN: 9780829449563
Publisher: Loyola Press
Published: 2020-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

Antoni Gaudí was born in 1852, in Reus, Catalonia, south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast. He was the youngest of five children born to his father, Francesc, and his mother, Antònia, both children of coppersmiths. As a youth, he suffered from poor health. He had rheumatism and misguidedly used vegetarianism and severe fasts to deal with it. The restrictions on his mobility isolated him from his peers, and he developed a fascination with nature and devout faith.

He showed an early interest in architecture and went to study in Barcelona around 1870. Gaudí’s deep appreciation for his homeland and pride in his Mediterranean heritage had a huge influence on his architecture and design. After graduation, Gaudí’s first designs were in the contemporary Victorianism, but he soon developed his own style, integrating Gothic features, Moorish influences, art nouveau, and organic designs from nature. The way he animated surfaces with patterns of brick, stone, or ceramic tiles reflected an Eastern influence.

Gaudí’s fame as an architect grew. Seven of his buildings in Barcelona are listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites, but it was the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia that has come to define his architectural legacy more than any other design. After 1910, he devoted himself exclusively to it and took up residence in its workshop. Gaudí himself was fond of comparing the Sagrada Família to the Catalan mountains and specifically to the unique geology of Montserrat. When he was killed in a tram accident in 1926, he was mistaken for a homeless beggar after having let his appearance go. The basilica was consecrated by Benedict XVI on November 7, 2010, while still under construction. The Pope’s homily spoke of the church as reflecting “a visible sign of the invisible God, to whose glory these spires rise like arrows pointing towards absolute light”89—a testimony to finding God in the design of form and light.

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