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Gaudí and nature

“Everything comes out of the great book of nature; the works of Men are a printed book.”
Antoni Gaudí

Just a few steps from here is Gaudí’s country house. When I was very young, I used to play here.

Discover Gaudí’s nature on foot by following the signposted route to the Maspujols stream and the Mas de la Calderera.

Follow Gaudí’s steps through the streets of Riudoms. He observes and finds answers to his inspiration. Nature and Riudoms were his study book.

The Gaudí Riudoms Route is the only one in the world that brings you closer to the social, cultural and spiritual personality of this brilliant architect, in the same natural places where he played as a child. Gaudí began a completely new form of architecture. Following this route, you will understand how he takes the forms of nature and transfers them to architecture.

The bark of the trees, the trunks of the plane trees, the stairs that take on different colours and shapes, the lichen clinging to a stone in a shady spot; all appear to Gaudí as a compendium of shapes and colours that inspire him. The leaves of the fan palm, so common and underrated in our lands, are suggested in the design of the grilles in the Gaudí’s Vicens house. Even a weed like the stonecrop, from its stem to the flower, inspired the towers of the Sagrada Família.

The Maspujols stream

In its intermittent floods, it washed away all kinds of materials that are deposited along its course. As a child, Antoni Gaudí played with the sediment, stirring it up in search of materials to inspire him. The stream has become the backbone of different human settlements over the centuries, with archaeological remains being found on both sides of its course.

Gaudí’s farmhouse, El Mas de la Calderera

Gaudí was born in this farmhouse on 25 June 1852. The estate had belonged to Antoni Gaudí’s family since the 18th century. It is located about 3 kilometres from the village, next to the Maspujols stream, crossed by the Sant Isidro or Mas de Pep mine. One of the many that cut across the town of Riudoms from north to south. The two centenary plane trees in front of the farmhouse and the threshing floor were some of the areas most frequented by Antoni Gaudí as a child.

La plaza del Árbol, Riudoms: a Homage to Gaudí

The architect, Hiroya Tanaka, designed this area for Riudoms, filling it with Gaudí elements and combining nature and Eastern and Western symbolism. The La plaza del Árbol hides stories about Gaudí among a dancing circle of sakura Japanese cherry blossom. Gaudí would have been happy to know that a creative Japanese artist would continue to evoke the great book of nature in his village. In the middle, the water moves the world. Observe it.

Sit for just for a few minutes on one of the benches, and imagine a conversation between Gaudí and Tanaka: love and passion, the magic of universal communication because they are real.