National Geographic: Gaudi's Masterpiece

This article features the big idea of biomimetric architecture. The article attempts to give the readers a reason for the colors, curves, and intricate carvings. Three important things I learned from this article are:

1. Gaudi based a lot of his work on observations in nature. La Sagrada Familia, in particular, is a builiding honoring God. Thus Gaudi felt that in a world where nature is the work of God, the best way to honor God is to design a building based on his work of nature. His understanding of nature was that of curved forms, not straight lines. This idea is very prevelant in his design of La Sagrada Familia, especially on the ceiling of the interior.

2. Gaudi knew that La Sagrada Familia was far too massive of a project to be completed in his lifetime. He spent the 12 years prior to his death turning his plans into geometric threee-dimentional models. He even lived at the construction site for the last year of his life. We owe much of the present day success to his three-dimentional models that showed a specific structure and form. "They contain the entire building's structural DNA," explains Mark Burry, an Australia-based architect who has worked on the Sagrada Família for 31 years, using drawings and computer technology to help translate Gaudí's designs for today's craftsmen.

3. Gaudi has taught all future architects to use nature for inspiration, but to understand the laws of mathematics must still be applied.

Berlin, Jeremy. "Gaudí's Masterpiece - National Geographic Magazine." National Geographic Magazine. N.p., Dec. 2010. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.