The Catalan architect and designer Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (1852-1926) merged Neo-Gothic and Moorish revival styles with the Art Nouveau style to form the most consistently original body of work by any architect of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Born on June 25, 1852, in the Catalan town of Reus near Barcelona, Antoni Gaudí studied at the School of Architecture in Barcelona (1874-1878) and also profited from reading the works of the French Neo-Gothic rationalist Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc. Gaudí's first important commission was a house for Manuel Vicens in Barcelona (1878-1880; remodeled under Gaudí's direction, 1925-1926). Here, as in El Capricho, a summer house at Comillas near Santander (1883-1885), he drew upon Moorish sources in the polychromatic use of stone, brick, tiles, and wrought iron.

Sagrada Familia

In 1884 Gaudí succeeded Francesco Villar as the architect of the Church of...