Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi (1852 – 1926) designed some of the world’s most astonishing buildings, interiors and parks; Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara constructed some of the most aesthetically audacious films ever made. Here their artistry melds in a unique, enthralling cinematic experience. Less a documentary than a visual poem, Teshigahara’s ANTONIO GAUDI takes viewers on a tour of Gaudi’s truly spectacular architecture, including his massive, still-unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona. With camera work as bold and sensual as the curves of his subject’s organic structures, Teshigahara immortalizes Gaudi on film.

“If any film could be described as an architectural symphony, it is Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1984 movie ANTONIO GAUDI. Much of the imagery in GAUDI is nothing less than astounding in its beauty and boldness, and the blending of a neo-Gothic mysticism and grandeur with an Art Nouveau line and a surreal apprehension of the power of nature. The erotic connotations of much of the work are so blunt as to be almost shocking.”
– Stephen Holden, The New York Times

“[Teshigahara] understands perfectly the relationship of the light of Gaudi’s country to the man’s style (styles). And Teshigahara also helps to reveal the splendors of external shapes by showing us interiors. No amount of previous knowledge of Gaudi – mine is only from photographs – ever completely dims the surprise of his work, the impression that the buildings have just this moment sprung out of the ground in a fantastic yet logical way.”
– Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic

Click here to read the full review of ANTONIO GAUDI from The New York Times

JAPAN • 1984 • 72 MINUTES • JANUS FILMS