Why Gaudí's global architectural influence remains limited despite his fame

Antoni Gaudí, despite his public fame, had minimal impact on 20th-century global architecture due to his idiosyncratic style and philosophical opposition to modernism. Architecture historian Mario Carpo calls him "a person against the spirit of his time." Gaudí's medieval-inspired, crafts-based approach clashed with the machine-age embrace of Bauhaus, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe, whose Barcelona Pavilion (1929) exemplified rational modernism. MoMA curator Martino Stierli notes Gaudí's work was too expensive and impractical for industrialised society. His models were destroyed in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. However, a 1957 MoMA exhibition signaled renewed interest, and by the 21st century, computational modelling of the Sagrada Familia linked him to parametric design and architects like Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid. Gaudí's recycling and biomimetic design now resonate with ecological concerns. Biographer Gijs van Hensenberg says he was "more influential for the 21st century than the 20th."