Calle del Arquitecto Gaudí

The name honours Antoni Gaudí i Cornet, born in the lands of Reus in 1852 and died in Barcelona in 1926, the architect who took Catalan Modernism into ground so personal that it still resists labels. He came from a family of coppersmiths, and he credited that trade with his ease in imagining volumes before building them. Frail health forced him to spend long spells in the countryside, where he grew fond of observing the forms of nature. From there came the leaning columns and vaults of the Sagrada Família, a commission he received in 1883 and left unfinished at his death. His end was that of an unknown man: a tram struck him near the church and, dressed in humble clothes, he went unrecognised for hours. The street belongs to the Nueva España quarter, in Chamartín, where several streets carry the names of architects. Barely a short stretch of quiet façades and trees to recall the man who dreamed a cathedral still under construction.