{"id":483610,"date":"2026-02-18T19:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/483610\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T19:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:04:07","slug":"hundred-year-reveal-catalonian-chalet-confirmed-as-gaudi-work-in-centenary-year-antoni-gaudi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/483610\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundred-year reveal: Catalonian chalet confirmed as Gaud\u00ed work in centenary year | Antoni Gaud\u00ed"},"content":{"rendered":"

An elegant modernist building in the mountains north of Barcelona, originally constructed to house engineers establishing a nearby mine, has been confirmed as a work of Antoni Gaud\u00ed<\/a>, Catalonia\u2019s most celebrated and distinctive architect.<\/p>\n

The Xalet del Catllar\u00e0s, about 80 miles from Barcelona<\/a> in the county of Bergued\u00e0, was built in 1905 and commissioned by Eusebi G\u00fcell, Gaud\u00ed\u2019s lifelong patron. G\u00fcell was the owner of a cement company with mines in the region and he needed somewhere to house the engineers, many of them British, who would help extract the coal for his factories.<\/p>\n

Gaud\u00ed\u2019s Park G\u00fcell in Barcelona. Photograph: MasterLu\/Getty\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n

It has long been suspected that the chalet, now not in use, was the work of Gaud\u00ed but historians had not firmly established the architect. The building contains elements of Gaud\u00ed\u2019s naturalistic style, evoking the forms of plants and animals that would later be expressed in works such as Park G\u00fcell and the Casa Batll\u00f2 in Barcelona. The pointed arch structure also foreshadows Gaud\u00ed\u2019s best-known work, the Sagrada Fam\u00edlia<\/a> in Barcelona.<\/p>\n

Gaud\u00ed died on 10 June 1926, at the age of 73, three days after being hit by a tram in Barcelona. Photograph: Heritage Images\/Getty<\/p>\n

S\u00f2nia Hern\u00e1ndez Almod\u00f3var, the Catalan culture minister, said the attribution was the fruit of \u201crigorous research which is of enormous value for our heritage\u201d and enriched Gaud\u00ed\u2019s legacy on the centenary of his death.<\/p>\n

The analysis was carried out by the Catalan heritage department led by the chair of Gaud\u00ed studies, Galdric Santana Roma. \u201cAfter much research we have concluded that the Xalet del Catllar\u00e0s is the work of Gaud\u00ed,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, this attribution is strictly limited to the initial stages of the project as Gaud\u00ed didn\u2019t supervise the work which didn\u2019t follow faithfully the original design.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santana said the process of certifying an architectural work is very different from that of a painting and the knowledge acquired in the study of the chalet will contribute to investigating other works attributed to Gaud\u00ed.<\/p>\n

Gaud\u00ed died on 10 June 1926, at the age of 73, three days after being hit by a tram in Barcelona, and numerous commemorative events and exhibitions are planned throughout the centenary year.<\/p>\n

The central tower of Gaud\u00ed\u2019s Sagrada Fam\u00edlia in Barcelona will be completed in June. Photograph: Alexander Spatari\/Getty<\/p>\n

The installation in June of the final elements of the illuminated cross atop the central Jesus Christ tower of the Sagrada Fam\u00edlia, more than 140 years after the project began in 1882, is likely to have the longest-lasting impact on the city\u2019s skyline.<\/p>\n

Initially funded by repentant sinners and more recently by tourism, the completion of the tower will make it, at 172.5 metres, Barcelona\u2019s tallest building. The Sagrada Fam\u00edlia is already the world\u2019s tallest church since part of its central tower was lifted into place in October.<\/p>\n

The chalet in the Catllar\u00e0s mountains features pointed arches that Gaud\u00ed also used in the Sagrada Fam\u00edlia. Photograph: Sergi Boixader\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Gaud\u00ed devoted the latter part of his life to the Sagrada Fam\u00edlia, but little of it was completed in the architect\u2019s lifetime, and work practically came to a halt at the outbreak of the Spanish civil war in 1936. The rise of mass tourism after the 1992 Olympic Games helped to make Barcelona a popular tourist destination and work on the church accelerated and moved into its final stages.<\/p>\n

Work on the Glory facade is expected to last another 10 years, and there remains the thorny issue of constructing the grand entrance stairway, in Gaud\u00ed\u2019s original plan, that would now entail rehousing 10,000 people and demolishing about 3,000 apartments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An elegant modernist building in the mountains north of Barcelona, originally constructed to house engineers establishing a nearby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-483610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}