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Gaudí y las bovedas de las escuelas de la Sagrada Familia

2005; Spanish National Research Council; Volume: 56; Issue: 496 Linguagem: Espanhol

10.3989/ic.2005.v57.i496.461

1988-3234

Josep Ma Adell, Alfonso García Santos,

Spanish Literature and Culture Studies

The tiny Gaudi School that once stood at the foot of the ‘Sagrada Familia’ is a gem of modernist brick architecture that has been overshadowed and even trampled on (for 7 years, from 1995 to 2002) by its gigantic neighbour, an atrocity that met with the same indifference as a beggar outside a church door. It was built in 1909 as a provisional structure for the education of the workers’ children in the full awareness that it would have to be demolished to finish the temple. In 1940, Quintana rehabilitated the roof to repair the damage caused by two fires that broke out during the civil war (1936 and 1939), although with variations on the original design, as shown in the present study. Over a period of 15 years Prof. Adell raised several proposals to the Temple Construction Council (abbreviated in Spanish as J.C.T.), to remove the school, all in one piece, to a better location. Due to the rapid progress on temple construction, nothing could be done in 2000 to prevent the J.C.T. from cutting off the northwest corner to make room for one of the columns that supports the main nave. Subsequently, in 2002, on the 150oh anniversary of Gaudi’s birth, despite Prof. Adell’s public opposition in forums such as the Ateneo de Barcelona and in the press, the J.C.T. hastily decided to move the school by sections and partially rebuild it with only three of the pieces. But the objections and the proposal to use flotation techniques to relocate this historic-artistic monument as a single unit to the adjacent square or to the other side of the S.F. compound were to no avail and unable to prevent the destruction of the school and its erroneous reconstruction, which bears little or no resemblance to the original. Nor was Prof. Adell’s proposal for a new roof, designed in conjunction with architect Eladio Dieste, accepted, even though this solution entailed the sort of technological evolution that Gaudi would have liked for this experimental work, in which he combined technique and form in very original ways in the early stages of his most ambitious architectural project.