•Notícia

The book Sagrada Família s. XXI, Gaudí ara was presented on 19 June at 8 p.m. It was written by Josep Gómez Serrano, Mark Burry and Jordi Coll and is being published by Edicions UPC. The book provides detailed information on past and current building work on the Sagrada Família church and, as proposed by the church’s Construction Board, describes the work carried out from 1991 to the present by the schools of architecture of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and RMIT University on the analysis and geometric representation of the complex forms of Antoni Gaudí’s design.

The presentation ceremony took place in the central nave of the Sagrada Família. Speeches were given by the rector of UPC, Antoni Giró; the president of the Sagrada Família Construction Board, Joan Rigol; the chief architect of the Sagrada Família, Jordi Bonet; the authors of the book Josep Gómez Serrano, Mark Burry and Jordi Coll; the architect Toyo Ito and art critic and historian Daniel Giralt-Miracle, who wrote the prologue to the book with Jordi Bonet.

Sagrada Família s. XXI, Gaudí ara gives a historical description of the Catalan architect and his times, during which he was the precursor and pioneer of the geometry that he himself brought to prominence. Over the 43 years during which he worked as the director of the Sagrada Família project—his masterpiece—he saw less than 10% of it built. Today, cutting-edge computer technology is being used to continue building the Sagrada Família, one of the world’s most challenging architectural projects. Gaudí’s approach to geometry has been reassessed with the help of existing computer programs, which make it easier to express the geometric content of his designs and make them more intelligible.

The task of continuing the work of Gaudí has been based on the original 1:10 and 1:25 scale models that survived the fire that destroyed his workshop in 1936, although these models first had to be restored and classified by the architects Francesc Quintana, Isidre Puig Boada and Lluís Bonet Garí and by the model makers working on the church.

The authors of the book are interested in showing us the singularity and depth of Gaudí’s architectural design and the results achieved today by means of computer media and the structural and constructive techniques adopted by the group of specialists working on the church. They also wish to encourage us to understand what Gaudí called “my experimental method”, which brought together theory and practice, research and craftsmanship, and which was based on a way of using new techniques in developing constructive-architectonic form that was truly his own.

Since 1991, the team of architects led by Josep Gómez Serrano at UPC has found that certain codes, which respond to a set of rules and fit in with a deliberately contrived approach to mathematics—Gaudí did not apply the decimal system but worked instead with the duodecimal system (based on the number 12)—could be established by applying CAD technology to the geometric figures with which Gaudí worked, which were based on ruled surfaces such as hyperboloids and paraboloids.

The book, which is a continuation of the one published in 1996 by the same authors, explains the discovery of these codes or measurement systems, as well as Gaudí’s use of geometry and its application in building each of the parts of the Sagrada Família: the columns, the windows, the vaults, the railings, the roofs of the main nave, the vestries and the towers.

Sagrada Familia s. XXI, Gaudí ara, published by Edicions UPC, is divided into three chapters. The prologues are written by architect Toyo Ito; Daniel Giralt-Miracle, art historian and curator of the International Gaudí Year in 2002; and Jordi Bonet, chief architect of the Sagrada Família. The first chapter briefly discusses the difficult time spent by Gaudí at university, which, once he had overcome financial problems and a number of other difficulties, enabled him to initiate his extraordinary career as an architect in 1883, the spirit of which still continues today.

The second chapter gives details on how the various parts of the Sagrada Família were built and the third comprises a series of photographs of the new forms taken by the work of the master of Modernisme.

MARK BURRY. Professor of Innovation at RMIT University in Melbourne (Australia), where he is the director of the Design Institute. Member of the Australian Research Council. As an architect and researcher working on the Sagrada Família project, he is in charge of finishing the Passion façade and is also head of the team that is designing the building’s main towers. He was named an “academic” by the Sant Jordi Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Catalonia, coauthored the book De Gaudí al CAD (Edicions UPC, 1996) and wrote the book Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família: Antoni Gaudí (Phaidon, 1993). He has also given a number of talks on the Sagrada Família and the ruled surfaces used by Gaudí.

JORDI COLL GRIFOLL. Architect. Head of the Design Department of the Sagrada Família. Partner of the studio CGB Arquitectura. Coauthor of the book De Gaudí al CAD (Edicions UPC, 1996). Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the exhibition Gaudí. La recerca de la forma (Any Gaudí, 2002).

JOSEP-VICENT GÓMEZ SERRANO. Head architect of the building work on the Sagrada Família. Professor of Structures at the Department of Structural Architecture of UPC. Author of the monograph L’obrador de Gaudí (Edicions UPC, 1996). Coauthor of the books De Gaudí al CAD and Gaudí invisible (ETSAV, 2003). Architecture curator of the exhibition Gaudí. La recerca de la forma.