Colònia Güell by Antoni Gaudí

Courtesy of Samuel Ludwig

Colònia Güell was a workers’ colony located in Santa Coloma de Cervelló, presently a town of around 7,000 inhabitants 20km outside Barcelona. The area was a manufacturing suburb that grew rapidly around the turn of the 20^th century. In 1898, Antoni Gaudi was commissioned by Count Eusebi de Güell, who wanted to provide a place of worship for the booming suburb, to build a Church.

Through the construction process of Colònia Güell, Gaudi is said to have experimented with an array of techniques and architectonic details, many of which would later be used in his famous tour-de-force, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

Courtesy of Samuel Ludwig

Brick and mosaics dominate the structure, used in an extraordinary way. The form of the building is anything but traditional, perhaps a by-product of the breath taking spaces, both interior and exterior. The crypt is magnificently articulated, changes in materiality carefully calculated and light sensitively controlled. Different bricks and stones are used for the structure, meeting at carefully detailed joints, and perhaps filling in different structural roles.

from archdaily