Gijs van Hensbergen

Its scaffolding-cloaked spires reach up to the heavens, dominating the Barcelona skyline and drawing in millions of visitors every year. What seduces our attention is perhaps a combination: not only its almost megalomaniac ambition and architectural extravagance but the sheer longevity of its construction. Its creator, Antoni Gaudi, 'God's Architect', saw the first stone laid on 19 March 1882 and yet it is unlikely to be completed until 2026 at the very earliest. It has survived two World Wars, the ravages of the Spanish Civil War and the 'Hunger Years' of Franco's rule. It has defied the critics, the penny-pinching accountants, the conservative town-planners and the slaves to sterile modernism to witness the most momentous changes in society and history. 'The Sagrada Familia' explores the evolution of this remarkable building, working through the decades right up to the present day before looking beyond to the final stretch of its construction. It is at once a guidebook and a chronological history, and a moving and compelling study of man's aspiration towards the divine. Rich in detail, vast in scope, this is a revelatory and authoritative study of a building and its place in history and the genius that created it.

The Astonishing Story of Gaudí’s Unfinished Masterpiece

The Sagrada Familia

The Astonishing Story of Gaudí's Unfinished Masterpiece

Sagrada Familia

At the time of his death in 1926, Antoni Gaudí was arguably the most famous architect in the world. He had created some of the greatest and most controversial masterpieces of modern architecture, which were as exotic as they were outrageous. But little is known about the shadowy figure behind the swirling, vivid buildings that inspired the Surrealists. This masterful biography brings both man and architect powerfully to life against the changing backdrop of Barcelona and Catalonia. Gijs van Hensbergen leads us through the design and construction of Gaudí’s most significant buildings -- revealing their innovation and complexity, and demonstrating the growing relevance of Gaudí’s architecture today.

A Biography

Gaudi

Of all the great paintings in the world, Picasso's Guernica has had a more direct impact on our consciousness than perhaps any other. In this absorbing and revealing book, Gijs van Hensbergen tells the story of this masterpiece. Starting with its origin in the destruction of the Basque town of Gernika in the Spanish Civil War, the painting is then used as a weapon in the propaganda battle against Fascism. Later it becomes the nucleus of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the detonator for the Big Bang of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1940s. This tale of passion and politics shows the transformation of this work of art into an icon of many meanings, up to its long contested but eventually triumphant return to Spain in 1981.

Gijs van Hensbergen

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