It is most certainly no secret that visiting at least one of the houses, parks or cathedrals designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí is pretty much a must when visiting Barcelona. Houses like the Casa Milá or the unfinished Colonia Güell are among some of the most amazing, breathtaking pieces of modern architecture. However, both of them pale in comparison to the sheer scale and splendor of the La Sagrada Familia, Gaudí’s most famous work as well as one of Barcelona’s most famous sights, if the line of visitors every morning is any indicator. Gaudí’s has excited and impressed many, among them Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara who has repeatedly expressed the profound effect Gaudí’s designs had on him, which he even associated with with his father Sofu Teshigahara and his work as an artist.

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In 1984, Teshigahara would once again visit Barcelona, this time filming the various architectural projects of the Catalan artist, a film he later would call “Antonio Gaudí”. During the course of its 72 minutes of running time, the director takes his viewer on a journey through the buildings designed by Gaudí, their exteriors as well as their interiors, exploring their shapes, patterns and their use of space. Supported by music and sound designed by Toru Takemitsu, Kurodo Mori and Shinji Hori, the film aims to open its viewer’s eyes to the beauty, the enormity of the vision, the meaning of nature and endlessness within Gaudí’s designs.

Even though Teshigahara’s film has been categorized as a documentary, the elements that would fit to this description are very few. Except for a few scenes in between giving some background to the creation of the La Sagrada Familia, Teshigahara concentrates rather on the designs themselves, exploring the buildings as well as their unique interior designs, highlighting Gaudí’s unique blend of the artistic and the practical, especially in the apartments of the Casa Milá. At the same time, when the camera explores the park, the images seem to emphasize how the architect took inspiration from shapes and pattern found in nature, thus creating a blend between the man-made form within the context of nature.

As the film reaches its final part, which is about La Sagrada Familia, Gaudí’s unfinished magnum opus, it becomes clear Teshigahara aims to capture the spark of inspiration by capturing the grandeur of this massive achievement through the images, and especially through the masterful collaboration of sound and music. Words must fail the enormity of the vision, the artistry and beauty in the middle of the city, and even images can only be an approach to what only the artist himself was able to see. However, through his “visual poem” about the art of Antoni Gaudí you may be able to comprehend how inspirational the experience of these designs and images has to be.

“Antonio Gaudí” is a wonderful, inspirational film about the architecture of Antoni Gaudí. It is a film not interested in surface, but in the poetry, the vision and the grandeur of the architect’s vision which still maintains its fascination on people today.