Domènech i Montaner, eternal architect

I consider Lluís Domènech i Montaner our best architect and one of the most brilliant men in the history of Catalan art. In this small country of ours, with its exclusive ticket booths, the mere fact that someone writes the preceding sentence will imply the usual tsunami of indignant Gaudí enthusiasts who would find it impossible to glimpse anything beyond the pulpit of their blessed saint. I understand that the tic of making rankings and comparisons between icons may seem childish, but you will forgive me: Gaudí's naturalism – with those unbearable salads of little flowers, the sickly dependence on the Virgin Mary and the consequent Catholic kitsch – has always given me a stomach ache (it has not helped, by the way, the nauseating barbarity of pastiches with which a group of wise men has transformed the Sagrada Familia into an authentic Easter cake; I hope posterity will be very harsh with their negligence).

Well, let's get to the point. Despite the dependence on wild things and a certain nostalgia for peasant ethics, in Domènech's work, passionate reason and the force of calculation always end up prevailing. This science must be thanked to his progenitor, a farm laborer, who immediately glimpsed how nature develops better in machines, thus becoming one of the best bookbinders of his time. At the Gavalotti School, Domènech studied with my colleague Francesc Xavier Llorens Barba, a gentleman who had the kindness to teach Socratic irony and common sense in this damned country of romantics. A lot has been written about Domènech's training and technique; I am particularly exalted by his bibliophile hobby, because the architect had a genuine addiction to knowing more about things like heraldry and, unlike many contemporaries, he spent many hours striving to link his art to that of the medieval masters.

It is perhaps this connection with the Romanesque and the deepest roots of the country (learned in the studies of the paleographer Jean-Auguste Brutails) that moves me most about Domènech's work. If I had enough time, I would put on my hiking boots and study him for five years; I intuit that Domènech, despite the animosity the Novecentistas had towards him, is the most solid artistic embodiment of Catalan thought, even of theorists who would long outlive him like Dalí or Pujols (it's a shame I'm not rich, because I could spend many hours studying him). Chatting with his great-grandson, also an architect, Lluís Domènch Girbau, he tells me that it is worth rescuing his ancestor's inaugural speeches when he was president of the Ateneu, especially to see how the architect distanced himself from his pactist colleagues in the Lliga to become an independentist, like any normal Catalan.

All this stuff, you must imagine, comes about because this year we celebrate the centenary of the death of Domènech i Montaner and se'ns gira molta feina. Starting on June 22, the College of Architects will exhibit the documentary legacy of our artist in an exhibition that looks very promising. While waiting for this exhibition, today we will rush to the Casa Padellàs of the MUHBA, where until August you can see a space dedicated to different urban planning projects by our genius. It is also imperative to go and admire the Columns of Augustus on Paradís street number 10 (found at the end of the 19th century while the Excursionist Center of Catalonia was being built), the neuralgic point of the eminently Roman urban core project that Domènech had imagined for our city. I also eagerly await the artistic installation that our learned Toni Llena is preparing there.

I intuit that Domènech, despite the animosity the Novecentistas had towards him, is the most solid artistic embodiment of Catalan thought, even of theorists who would long outlive him like Dalí or Pujols

Let's celebrate, then, our architect's birthday as God intended. It is a real shame, and if I don't write it I will explode, that on this great occasion the MNAC has not taken advantage of the anniversary to organize the retrospective exhibition that this enormous artist deserves. We will wait for the next anniversary, what else can we do. We always have to wait.