Gaudiana

In the centenary year of his death, this book —with a foreword by Luis Gueilburt, former director of the Gaudí Studies Center— offers an unusual journey through the life and work of Antoni Gaudí. Far from the tourist routes and the oft-reproduced images of the Sagrada Familia or Casa Batlló, César Alcalá delves into the less explored side of Gaudí: the man shaped by the Carlist Wars, the turbulent Barcelona of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the tensions between modernity, tradition, and spirituality. With the eye of a historian rather than a devotee, Alcalá situates Gaudí within his time and reconstructs the political, religious, and cultural influences that marked his career. Readers will thus discover forgotten or barely studied projects —the Comella display case, the Girossi kiosk, the Sala Mercè, and the Tangier missions— alongside key figures such as Eusebi Güell, Josep Torras i Bages, and the professor and biographer Joan Bassegoda i Nonell. The result is an original portrait, less hagiographic and more human. A book that invites us to look anew at one of architecture's greatest geniuses from unexpected and, precisely for that reason, revealing angles.