And what if Gaudí has visited New York? Construction-Fiction

Abstract

The author adopts fiction-writing methods to reveal the contradictions in the mindless hero-worship underlying many of the studies conducted on Antoni Gaudi's oeuvre, not all of which were ever built: contradictions that hamper a serenely critical view of his architectural endeavour. The article centres on a hypothetical hotel that he might have built in New York, with the author embarking Gaudí on an imaginary trip to the skyscraper city to enable him to compare his presumed basic idea with the reality he would have encountered on his arrival. On the occasion of this fictional stay, Gaudi would have visited Rafael Guastavino's design for St. John the Divine, an episode that the author uses to critically review certain of the Catalonian architect's theories, still regarded to be correct today by a number of authors with clearly idolatrous leanings.