While impoverished and still agrarian post-Napoleonic Spain sank into a growing economic and social crisis, the only industrialized centre of the Iberian Peninsula, Catalonia, specifically Barcelona, experienced a general and, above all, its greatest cultural boom thanks to a stable economy and romantic spirit. The main bearers and promoters of the latter were many writers, poets and visual artists, who were willingly supported by wealthy Catalan industrialists for their own benefit and plans. The greatest reputation was given to architects, mainly Antoni Gaudí, one of the most recognizable personalities of the period.
Although today Gaudí’s creations are treated as unique and fantastic, they, just as those of his contemporaries, firmly follow the guidelines of their time in style, construction technique, material and iconography: consolidation of pro-Catalan identity and ideology, which are sometimes uncritical or tailored to the needs of the contemporary society.
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