On a recent trip to Barcelona, I had occasion to visit several of the architectural works of Antoni Gaudi, including the magnificent basillica 'La Sagrada Familia'. How different the organic, swirling forms of the architect's vision from the soulless, functional design of the city's airport (or, indeed, any other airport).

Now Gaudi died in 1926 (run over by a tram), before the age of airport construction got under way. I'm sure that a Gaudi-esque airport would be a wonder to behold, and introduce much needed elements of beauty and elegance to the humdrum experience of air travel.

But we need not stop at airports. Power stations, sports arenas, railway terminii, all these would benefit from the Gaudi treatment.

All that is needed if for some enterprising civil engineering company to take up the torch, and adequate funding to be provided by a generous philanthopist. Care must be taken that the project is properly managed, since the Sagrada Familia has been under construction since 1884 (albeit interupted by several wars, and dynamited by Catalan anarchists), which is probably too long a time scale for a modern building.
-- Mickey the Fish, May 21 2007

Gaudi http://en.wikipedia...i/Antoni_Gaud%C3%AD
[Mickey the Fish, May 21 2007]

Sagrada Familia http://www.sagradafamilia.org/
[Mickey the Fish, May 21 2007]

Gehry's Disney Opera Concert Hall http://www.terragal...eets.usca35302.html
[hippo, May 21 2007]

Gehry's cardboard chair http://www.netropol...g/gehry/chair2.html
[hippo, May 21 2007]

Catenary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenary
Many of Gaudi's works employed enthusiastic usage of (and plays upon)the catenary arch. [zen_tom, May 21 2007]

Perhaps you ought to have a chat with this bloke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Andreu
//or, indeed, any other airport// - I always quite liked the New Charles De Gaulle International Airport [zen_tom, May 21 2007]

Fred and Ginger http://www.littlepr...rlandsBldgPraha.jpg
The model was left on a window-sill in bright sunlight. They waited until it distorted, then built the results. [xenzag, May 21 2007]

Sydney Pollack's documentary on Frank Gehry http://www.amazon.c...llack/dp/B000GFRI6I
Interesting to watch, if you like Gehry. [jutta, May 21 2007]

+ sure, I like funky stuff.
-- xandram, May 21 2007


Gaudi didn't seem to leave behind an architectural movement based on his work or a school of imitators. The closest big-name architect doing that kind of 'organic' thing I can think of is Frank Gehry - and he actually probably could be persuaded to design an airport. His Disney Opera House in LA is lovely (link).
(Gehry trivia: I once sat on one of his cardboard chairs (see link) - very comfortable it was too)
-- hippo, May 21 2007


Gaudi is wonderful - I think some of his "organicness" comes from his technique of modelling his buildings upside-down using pieces of weighted string anchored at each end to the ceiling. The shapes of the resulting arches could then be copied down into a more traditional plan - and he'd be sure that all the loads and stresses would be spread out naturally and proportionately.
-- zen_tom, May 21 2007


Avant Gaudi, I guess we could call the movement.
-- DrCurry, May 21 2007


Gaudi's architecture was much more akin to Wright in his expressive use of texture. [+]

Gehry isn't qualifed to be a doormat for Gaudi. Gehry is a theorist who went from teaching to the big time with nothing more than a single idea (and a poor one, at that, frought with problems including cultural insensitivity, blinding reflectivity and associated heat and glare effects on traffic and adjacent structures, poor interior planning, etc.); a one one trick pony as it were.
-- nuclear hobo, May 21 2007


I wouldn't associate Gehry with Gaudi either... Gaudi is (was) considerably more lyrical and organic in style. Gehry's work is easily imitated with a few crumpled cans and some folded, silver faced board, the exception being the wonderful Fred and Ginger building in Prague (see link)
-- xenzag, May 21 2007


//Avant Gaudi// if a bridge was to be named after him could it please be called the Gaudi Gate Bridge, and a car of course would be an Audi Gaudi.
-- xenzag, May 21 2007


Well, so long as it was in the style of Gaudi and not in the style of the Sagrada Familia, the front of which is a glory, the back of which seems to relate to an entirely different building and the sides of which are utterly pedestrian by comparison. Crazzy Spaniards.

Also, wasn't it Will Self who was on the telly saying that airports should be much more amazing and grand, rather than strip lit and uniform?
-- calum, May 21 2007


I very much agree with the poster - not because I like Gaudi so much, but because the architecture of our cities is terribly boring and risk-averse - but I'm not sure that the observation and the desire to fix it are a halfbakery invention by themselves.
-- jutta, May 21 2007



random, halfbakery