God's Architect: Antonio Gaudi

Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi has been mentioned several times in this blog. He worked in Barcelona a century ago, creating sensuous buildings with undulating walls, colorful mosaics, and unconventional spaces.  His work is variously categorized as art nouveau, modernist, or uniquely Catalonian. Gaudi's masterwork is the Sagrada Familia basilica. Frank Lloyd Wright dismissed the ornate forms of Sagrada Familia as "architecture with a laxative." I believe Gaudi was the last great Gothic architect: structurally disciplined but unaffected by tradition. View the video at this link to judge for yourself: God's Architect: Antonio Gaudi's Glorious Vision - 60 Minutes - CBS News. The thirteen minute video reveals the splendor in Gaudi's mind that is gradually being realized after 130 years of construction. It reveals his genius more than is possible with static photographs. Some believe Gaudi's total vision for Sagrada Familia may actually be completed in another thirteen years. But we can already see what God's architect had in mind.

One of four main facades at Sagrada Familia.

Columns and ceiling.

Organic engineering.

Images:  R. Munger

VIDEO: Architecture by Michael Knorr

A video of work by Michael Knorr has been created by our photographer, Rob Munger. It's a ten minute look at our contemporary projects put together for the Denver Modern Home Tour. Ten minutes is a bit long for YouTube attention spans. We'll try to get a short version posted later. Thanks for viewing:

Wright's Fallingwater

The problem with portraying architecture in photos is that a 2D representation never fully captures the 3D experience of architecture. Video has a similar problem. Even 3D video never envelopes you the way architecture does. 

This computerized rendition of Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece, Fallingwater, attempts to overcome those limitations by disecting and examing the building from every vantage point... even those vantage points impossible in real life. It's not like being there, but it comes close.

Enjoy.

Video by Cristobal Vila.

Julius Shulman: Architectural Photographer

Photographer Julius Shulman was our greatest photographic chronicler of modern architecture from the mid-twentieth century well into the twenty-first. He both documented and romanticized the work of the important architects working on the west coast: Rudolf Schnindler, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Meyer, John Lautner, etc. At the same time he created enduring myths about modernism, Los Angeles, and the atomic age.  The film Visual Acoustics by Arthouse Films, narrated by Dustin Hoffman, is not to be missed. This cinematic biography of Julius Shulman respects and enlightens his work. It was released in 2008 and continues to make the art house and film festival circuits. It is also available on DVD from Netflix.