National Geographic: The Soul of Spain Page #7

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and marriage is something that

I don't like

Ruiz de la Prada is a designer

and business woman

These dolls, whose costumes

she creates, sold over a million

in Spain alone last year

She also designs highly original clothing

When I was little

I wanted to be a painter

One thing that I have ever hate

is the big distance between a picture on

a wall and the way that people live

I think that you

when you like some picture

you must wear it. No?

And you must eat with it

and you must sleep with it

You must put it in your life

No?

Humorous and deliberately outrageous

her design has brought her international

recognition

The impulse behind them

in fact, springs from

a traditionally Spanish attitude

that of the rugged individualist

Barcelona

Spanish's largest seaport the nation's

second city

and industrial powerhouse

Barcelona is also the center of a rich

and highly original artistic tradition

This legacy is evident everywhere...

in a mosaic pavement created

by the great Joan Miro...

A design created by Picasso

in his self-imposed exile

during the Franco years...

and the undulating curves of a facade

by Antonio Gaudi

A genius who used the sinuous forms

of nature

as the vocabulary for his architecture

Gaudi was dubbed visionary-and madman

Son of a coppersmith

he was modest and self-effacing

refused by the one woman to whom he

proposed

he would dedicate his life exclusively

to architecture and God

He maintained

God continues creation through man

In 1884 he began work

in the Sagrada Familia the Expiatory

Temple of the Holy Family

It would be his masterpiece

But in 1926

returning from evening church services

to sleep in his workshop

Gaudi was struck by a streetcar

Three days later he died

Thousands followed the funeral cortege

to his final resting place

the crypt of his unfurnished basilica

Today, Gaudi's vision continues

to take shape above him

From the beginning

construction has been funded

by public donations

Only some 50 artists and craftsmen

are employed

Architect Jordi Bonet

like his father a specialist

in the works of Gaudi

has been entrusted with completion

of the building

As much a sculptor as an architect

Gaudi preferred to make models

rather than work from drawings

Using them

Bonet is able to continue according

to Gaudi's concept

A model of the nave

the central part of the church

reveals columns whose design was

inspired by shapes found in nature

They will support the ceiling of the nave

filling the shell that has stood empty

for over a century

With all of these Gaudi original

elements

it is possible to continue it

and to build in his place the nave

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