A Collaborator of the Creator

June 1, 2026

The architectural legacy of Antoni Gaudí, culminating in the Sagrada Família, is an open-ended dialogue with God, nature and his fellow man

By Chiara Curti

June 1, 2026

Antoni Gaudí (third from left) accompanies bishops during a visit to the Sagrada Família on July 2, 1915. — Antoni Gaudí (third from left) accompanies Archbishop Francesco Ragonesi (center), apostolic nuncio to Spain, and Bishop Enrique Reig y Casanova of Barcelona during a visit to the Sagrada Família on July 2, 1915. (© Iberfoto / Bridgeman Images)

Traditionally, an architect is judged by his ability to create beauty from mere matter. The image is so powerful that even descriptions of divine creation invoke God as architect. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, employed this metaphor in his Summa Theologica when he wrote, “God, Who is the first principle of all things, may be compared to things created as the architect is to things designed.”

How, then, are we to understand the fact that Venerable Antoni Gaudí, an architect whose work was informed by his deeply held Catholic faith, viewed the discipline of architecture as alien to this image of creating perfection out of nothing?

“I am not building the Sagrada Família; she is the one building me,” he said of the masterwork that consumed the last 12 years of his life. “I would not want to finish the work, because it would not be fitting to do so.”

To those who knew him, Gaudí’s marvelous structures were the fruit of his search for truth — in life, faith and the discipline of architecture.

“Do you believe that a man who spends half his life making a unique work that grows slowly, almost desperately slowly, is only moved by an ardent imagination that is not presided over or governed by the most serene of insights?” asked Isidore Puig Boada, a student of Gaudí’s who served as director of construction at the Sagrada Família. “Thirty-one years of study, of continuous efforts, ‘bringing together energies,’ as he says, have resulted in the wonders we contemplate today.”

IN PURSUIT OF A SUPREME IDEAL

Gaudí’s architectural career can be seen as a long preparation for the Sagrada Família. “The unity of his works should not surprise us, since each one was a study that was meant to be applied to the Church of the Holy Family, which is his life’s work,” said Lluís Bonet i Garí, Gaudí’s disciple, who helped save his architectural models from destruction by anarchists during the Spanish Civil War.

Most of Gaudí’s works, from the Mataró Workers’ Cooperative, his first major commission, to Casa Milà, the last private residence he designed, were left unfinished or were completed by other architects.

As for the one project of which he was both developer and architect, the Sagrada Família Schools — a small building constructed for the children of the men working on the church — he chose a site where the expansion of the church would eventually necessitate its demolition. (Instead, the building was relocated after sustaining damage during the Spanish Civil War.)

The central Tower of Jesus Christ, with its cross installed Feb. 20, rises above the Basilica of the Sagrada Família at 172.5 meters (566 feet). (Photo by Dr. Guillermo Simon-Castellvi / Fiamc Press Services)

In many cases, it was Gaudí’s deliberative pace that caused projects to remain incomplete.

“In spite of his excellent vision, he, the man who could improvise most easily, made and unmade his projects tirelessly, always looking for solutions, adjusting the harmonies, while growing closer and closer to the supreme ideal of perfection,” said Domènec Sugrañes, whom Gaudí chose to succeed him as architect of the Sagrada Família at the end of his life. “This is why he produced relatively few buildings, although their quality and flawlessness more than made up for this.”

Gaudí’s buildings are reminiscent of Michelangelo’s intentionally unfinished sculpture series The Prisoners, in which human figures appear to struggle to free themselves from the blocks of marble from which they are carved. Like Michelangelo, Gaudí manages to transcend the work, to confront and accept incompleteness, expressing a deeper idea about creation, change and the relationship between the divine and the human.

For Gaudí, the work of art is God’s and, at the same time, incomplete. Man has been chosen by God as his collaborator in a continually unfolding creation.

“The flexible clarity of his vision gave him free rein to develop the highest concepts of his architecture,” said Bonet i Garí. “For that reason, his works cannot be separated into mere parts; they are whole, elegant and filled with sincerity. Humbly recognizing the grace that God had granted him, he was never surprised when he found the solution to any architectural problem swiftly and easily.”

A BUILDER OF PEACE

Gaudí’s notion of the artist as participating in God’s act of creation informed his relationships with his clients and the workers who made his designs a reality.

Josep Bayó Font, the builder of the houses Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, described Gaudí’s close rapport with his builders: The architect would carefully observe the work of the laborers and then set to work alongside each of them, saying, “Like this, like this, like this … .”

Gaudí himself was no stranger to manual work. On more than one occasion, the architect demonstrated his instructions to perplexed ironworkers. “The brilliant Gaudí took off his jacket and waistcoat and, rolling up his shirt sleeves, swiftly picked up the heavy mallet and, with every ounce of his strength, began fiercely hammering the anvil, with truly apocalyptic blows and a tremendous ferocity,” the sculptor Ricard Opisso recalled.

Despite his exacting vision, Gaudí did not impose a rigid plan on the craftsmen and sculptors, but granted them freedom in the work’s execution. He upheld the dignity of the laborer at a time when factories imposed alienating conditions and workers had lost sight of the meaning of their labor.

His lectures on building methods, materials and engineering became so popular that a hall was set up in the basement of Casa Milà to accommodate the audience, which included workers from Gaudí’s own and other construction sites, young architects and the general public. Even then, crowds spilled onto the street, testifying to the architect’s broad appeal.

Lights illuminate Sagrada Família's Passion façade. — Lights illuminate the basilica’s Passion façade during a presentation narrating the passion and death of Jesus on Palm (Passion) Sunday, March 29. (Photo by Lluis Gene / AFP via Getty Images)

Our own era bears a certain resemblance to Gaudí’s. The pace of life accelerated by the industrial revolution has only intensified in the digital age, while technological progress continues to shape both human creativity and destruction. In such a world, Gaudí’s example teaches a method of building peace. He points to a world in which we are inspired by the work of others, allow freedom in its execution and, above all, do not think of ourselves as the owners of our work, but rather its stewards.

During Gaudí’s lifetime, the Spiritual Association of Devotees of St. Joseph, the group that initiated the Sagrada Família, printed postcards for donors bearing an image of the Nativity façade then under construction.

Significantly, the description on the cards did not read “Façade of the Nativity,” but rather “Façade of Life.” The phrasing is a fitting testimony to Gaudí’s conviction that what matters is not the final result, but the process — that is, time, dedication, life. As the master himself said, “The Nativity façade expresses the thrill and enjoyment of life!”

Gaudí’s architecture remains open, in a continuous dialogue with time, with people and with God, even if some work remains incomplete — like the Sagrada Família itself, whose construction continues today. When asked if he was the architect of the Sagrada Família, Gaudí replied that he was a “collaborator of the Creator.”

This is the legacy he leaves to all those who seek to collaborate with God as builders, perhaps of great structures, but above all of their own lives.

*****

CHIARA CURTI, a Barcelona-based architect and art historian, is the author of My Gaudí: The Biography Written by His Friends (Triangle Books, 2025) and Sagrada Família: Cathedral of Light (Triangle Books, 2022).

Pilgrims walk beneath the branching columns and stained-glass windows of the Basilica of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona.

A Collaborator of the Creator

IN PURSUIT OF A SUPREME IDEAL

A BUILDER OF PEACE

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