With a sly smile and the proud air of someone who had worked hard to get where he was, José Manuel Almuzara slid the small card onto the table at the café in La Pedrera, Barcelona. On the front was a photograph of architect Antonio Gaudí, long bearded and gazing off into the distance, taken at the end of his life. Behind him, the silhouette of the Sagrada Família, the famous basilica of Barcelona and his unfinished masterpiece, stood out against a pink backdrop of Catalan sunset.
At the bottom, you could see the artist’s name, his dates and an inscription: “The architect of God.” “This was the first devotional tool we had printed at the start of our wild adventure,” said José Manuel Almuzara, 73, born in 1952, 100 years after Gaudí, as he likes to point out. “You really have to read what’s on the back.”
On the back, the card features a text in tiny letters: A short biography of the architect that ends with a prayer. “God, our Father, who inspired your servant Antoni Gaudí, architect, with a great love for your Creation (…) Grant me success in fulfilling my task and deign to glorify your servant Antoni, by granting me, through his intercession, the grace that I ask of you (state your request). Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”
Centenary of his death
Gaudí, who left his mark on Barcelona with his modernist and almost surrealist vision, may soon be invoked by the faithful as a saint of the Catholic Church. That, at least, has been the mission of Almuzara. For 34 years, the architect has campaigned for the Vatican to recognize the sainthood of this iconic figure of Barcelona. It has been a quest as much spiritual as artistic, and it could finally come to fruition in 2026.
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