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ues. Although additional features of the
structure were completed after Gaudí's
death in an accident, the outbreak of the
S
PANISH
CIVIL
WAR
effectively halted the
construction of the Sagrada Familia. His
posthumous reputation went through
periods of praise by surrealists and abstract
expressionists (who saw him as a kindred
spirit), derision by advocates of the “inter-
national style” (who ridiculed his theory
of “equilibrium” and championed a clean
architectural line and freedom from orna-
mentation” and those who took more
interest in Gaudí's aphorisms than the
strange buildings he had created in pursuit
of his visionary philosophy. His name has
been put forward at intervals for canoniza-
tion, but those who celebrate his piety find
his reactionary politics and baffling flights
of fancy harder to deal with.
Generation of '27 (Generación
del 27)
Inspired by the 1927 observances of the tri-
centenary of the death of poet L
UIS
DE
G
ÓN
-
GORA
, this group of poets acquired an image
of common inspiration and motivation
resembling that of the G
ENERATION
OF
'98.
Indeed they have been referred to as the
“Grandsons of '98.” They are generally con-
sidered to have included R
AFAEL
A
LBERTI
,
F
EDERICO
G
ARCÍA
L
ORCA
, and the Nobel
Prize winner V
ICENTE
A
LEIXANDRE
, and by
extension the filmmaker L
UIS
B
UÑUEL
and
even the surrealist painter S
ALVADOR
D
ALÍ
.
While paying homage to Góngora, they
insisted that their primary respect was due
to “the word.” They insisted that their mis-
sion was to find new modes of expression
and rejected the doctrines of both romanti-
cism and realism.
La Sagrada Familia, Antonio Gaudí's masterpiece, in
Barcelona
(Getty)
ished. After the early 1900s he pursued no
other work, spending all of his time on
sketching his designs, consulting with the
craftsmen who were capable of carrying
out his complex visions, and supervising
the handling of materials. The exotic
appearance of the structure excited awe
and amazement at first, but the passing of
the years and changes in taste led many to
regard it as the folly of the reclusive archi-
tect, who lived on the building site, pes-
tered potential donors to contribute to the
cost of the enterprise, and pursued an ever
more ascetic obsession with spiritual val-
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