Antonio Gaudí y Cornet (1852-1926) has gone down in history as a singular architect, capable of combining daring artistic conceptions with a marked esotericism. Gaudí was an architect who knew how to transform his buildings into beautiful structures full of symbolism, between the evocation of a fantastic world and his use of a codified language, impenetrable for most people. Gaudí lived very austerely, without any luxury. Born into a humble family of artisans, Gaudí studied at the School of Architecture of Barcelona, until 1878. He then began working on multiple projects in which buildings were transformed into something alive, while the form seemed to dematerialize and in which Everything seemed to change continuously as in an alchemical process. According to Gaudí, «The intelligence of man can only be expressed in the plane and in two dimensions: he solves equations with an unknown, of the first degree. Angelic intelligence is in three dimensions, and is deployed directly through space ».
Gaudí's world moves between the past and the future and its constructions are a fusion between Gothic and modernism. His works contain an impenetrable hermeticism whose decryption is not easy to achieve. But Gaudí's esotericism tends to the sacred and Gaudinian buildings are raised by a combination of symbols and allegories that are mixed with no continuity solution, but with a force that attracts and surprises. Gaudí's esotericism is also manifested by the absence of writings since, surprisingly, he did not publish articles or books, nor did he give any lectures. All their knowledge was transmitted orally to some collaborators. Thus, behind his life-giving works, such as Casa Batlló, in Barcelona, there is a kind of intermediate zone between mythology and the world of human beings. "The history of architecture is the history of the Church, " Gaudí said, indicating that his creative activity was oriented towards the sacred. In his works you can see a return of medieval architects who, in the construction of the cathedrals, inserted symbols and allusions to worlds beyond the human dimension.
This is very evident in the unfinished construction of the Sagrada Familia (Barcelona), which cannot be limited to defining it as a church. This impressive temple is a synthesis of all the hermetic language of the brilliant Catalan architect. In fact, we can see towers that transform the stone into plant representations, divinities and mythical figures that come out of matter. But despite this obvious transformation and movement in Gaudí's constructions, we failed to discover its real meaning or the message it wanted to convey to us. The universal Catalan master has achieved immortality, since he has left behind an architecture that is transformed into a kind of forest in which it is easy to enter, but in which we enter a labyrinthine environment in which the road is easily lost to follow. The hidden sense of the sacred explained by symbols only allows the esoteric key to be grasped to a select few.
Elías Rogent, director of the School of Architecture of Barcelona, when granting him the professional qualification in summer of 1878, said the following: “I am still not sure of having awarded the diploma to a madman or a genius”. Thus began the public life of the great Catalan architect, whose art exerts an irresistible attraction between art scholars and tourists from all corners of the world. However, even being universally known, there are many gaps and contradictions about his biography. For example, no one dares to say if he was really born in Reus (Tarragona) or in the neighboring town of Riudoms. The truly surprising thing is that in the marriage certificate of their parents, coming from a lineage of boilermakers, unmistakable Masonic signs appear, such as the triangle with a watchful eye and mythological creatures. But this should not be too surprising, since during the first half of the 19th century, numerous secret societies, such as the Carbonarians and Freemasons, were located in Reus and its surroundings.
The future architect and his parents maintained close ties with important families in the area. In this regard, we must point out that the young Gaudí shared a school desk with Eduardo Toda, a future diplomat and a prominent member of the local masonry. Both worked on a blueprint to restore the monastery of Poblet, maintaining a solid friendship that remained over time. Some sources say that at that stage he suffered rheumatic fevers that prevented him from participating in sports activities, which influenced his solitary and introverted character, of which some highlight his great ingenuity. However, his observer character facilitated the development of his affinity for nature, which would accompany him for the rest of his existence. At the same time he increased his passion for classical mythology. Other versions say that from an early age he was related to artisans and sculptors related to construction, learning their guild language, inherited from Freemasonry. And it was his uncle who taught him the theoretical and practical rudiments of these groups. During their professional activities, mutual respect with masons and other construction professionals contrasted with the tension that presided over their relationships with patrons and sponsors.
In 1869 he arrived in Barcelona with the intention of studying architecture. At 17, he worked as a draftsman for Eduardo and Jos Fontser, at that time masters of works . He is also related to Elìas Rogent, a well-known freethinker, who introduced him to the secrets of medieval buildings. And the study of the writings of the esoteric French Eugenio Viollet-Le-Duc influenced his attraction to Gothic art. The university stage of Gaud is characterized by contrasts, since although he was an irregular student, his ideas attracted supporters and detractors. Once he got the degree, he associated with his career colleague Camilo Oliveras, who was an anarchist, and planned the headquarters of the Cooperativa Agraria de Matar (Barcelona) whose plans he draws on the strange scale of 1/666, which included the number of the Best a of the Apocalypse and which was an unusual scale in the history of art. His good relations with his countryman Juan Grau, bishop of Astorga (Le n) help him to count on him for different sacred works.
The architect's biographies coincide in pointing out Gaud 's disorderly personality during that period, in which he did not hesitate to frequent socialist and conspiratorial environments. But in mid-1894 his life began an unexpected turn towards asceticism. Much has been speculated about it. It is also said that Gaudé withdrew from the worldly noise after a romantic break with such a Pepeta. Again, we must review the biographical notes to remember their relations with ecclesiastical environments, starting with Bishop Torras y Bages, or the poet and religious Jacinto Verdaguer. On the other hand, the Chinese-born scholar Hou Tech-Chien, in his doctoral thesis on the architect's spirituality, offers an unusual explanation: “Gaudí experienced the very common illumination of Zen Buddhism. He was a philosopher who expressed his ideas through architecture as a metaphor ... It had its philosophical streak, but never studied philosophy, but was guided by intuition. The same thing happens in Taoism ».
To carry out his impressive work, the patronage of the aristocrat Eusebio Güell Bacigalupi, a Catalan nationalist and a member of freethinker groups, was essential. It is known that both met in 1878, but the circumstances surrounding their encounter are unknown. Out of its association, frankly unusual constructions emerged, with the enigmatic Parc Güell standing out, or the palace that this nobleman ordered to build on the Ramblas of Barcelona, on land considered "cursed." Based on esoteric geometry, this park and the Güell estate next to the Buenaventura Aribau monument, form an equilateral triangle. And this monument, full of Masonic symbology, is part of an environment devised by the Fontseré brothers, with whom Gaudí collaborated with secondary designs, although innovative, starting with an underground cistern.
Also, the Güell palace is linked to the temple of the Sagrada Familia by a straight line that crosses the Hospital de San Pablo. And the Sagrada Familia, in addition, connects with a second straight line that runs through the Park Güell, passing through the Tibidabo temple, to end in the archdiocese of Astorga, in León, all of them works designed by Gaudí. Still today it is discussed what these enigmatic alignments obeyed. Be that as it may, there are discussion points, such as their true relationship with Freemasonry. A guide appeared in 1895, which included the activities of the lodges in the Catalan capital, includes a list of the members that made them up. But, along with the names of various illustrious characters, Gaudí's one shines because of his absence. Any information that would have solved this mystery was lost in the strange fire of his archives, deposited in the temple of the Sagrada Familia, occurred in June 1936. And a few days before, a mysterious second fire destroyed his belongings stored in the Park Güell . A similar outcome occurred with respect to his works, since few came to be completed in the life of the architect.
The Parc Güell is probably one of its main occult samples, with great symbolic load. This residential development proposal began in 1902, but failed because of its remoteness from the urban center of Barcelona at the time. Joan Bassegoda Nonell, director of the Gaudí chair, said that the representation of the Python monster, looking like a salamander, along with other symbolic elements, hides an alchemist oven. In addition to the 33 steps (symbol of the Masonic degrees) to reach the first promontory, and the 21 columns that support it (coinciding with the 21 Major Arcana of the Tarot), the wavy lines of the lateral banks suggest the structure of the DNA when they overlap, as interpreted by the architect Ricardo Bofill in a conference delivered in Barcelona at the end of 1968. Similar fate suffered the Güell Crypt, mausoleum whose construction was interrupted in 1917 after the death of the patron. When it was not his irascible character to blame for not finishing some works, such as the Episcopal Palace of Astorga, his death was responsible for interrupting them. A tram hit him in the summer of 1926, dying in the homeless room of the Hospital de San Pablo. His careless appearance prevented him from identifying him until it was too late.
The Passion Facade of the Temple of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, designed by the sculptor Josep María Subirachs, shows a magic square of order 4. A magic square is the arrangement of a series of whole numbers in a matrix in such a way that the sum of the numbers by columns, rows and main diagonals be the same, the magic constant. Usually the numbers used to fill in the boxes are consecutive, from 1 to n², where n is the number of columns and rows of the magic square. Officially the magic constant of the square is 33, the age of Jesus Christ in the Passion. But the choice of this number has also been attributed as a veiled allusion to the alleged Masonic ascription, never demonstrated, of Antonio Gaudí, since 33 are the traditional degrees of Freemasonry. Structurally, it is very similar to Alberto Durero's "Melancholy" magic engraving square, but two of the square's numbers (12 and 16) are diminished by two units (10 and 14), with which repetitions appear. This allows to reduce the magic constant in 1. Alberto Durero, a German painter born in Nuremberg, made in 1514 the engraving Melancholy, which can be seen in the Germanisches National Museum in Nuremberg or in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, in Paris. In this engraving, Dürer painted in a prominent place a magic square of order 4. It was made of copper plate and is one of the best engravings of Dürer, which are full of enigmatic details.
As we have indicated previously, Gaudí was the maximum representative of Catalan Modernism and one of the main pioneers of the artistic avant-gardes of the twentieth century. There is no doubt that Gaudí was a practicing Catholic and that some of the symbols he used are Christian (Mary's, crosses, etc.). But there are other symbols in his work that do not match the traditional Catholic symbology. It is really surprising that an orthodox Catholic personality like his used symbols that had very specific meanings outside of Christianity and instead did not have them within Catholic orthodoxy. We can say that Gaudi experienced a path within Catholic orthodoxy, but with a practice that went beyond Catholicism, since Gaudinian constructions abound with signs and symbols that are the heritage of certain Secret Societies. All Gaudí's biographers agree that during his youth, the architect was interested in the advanced social ideas of Fourier and Ruskin, in addition to maintaining relations with the most advanced social movements of the time. His friendship with utopian socialists and anarchists related to Masonic media, which is evidenced in his early work, gives rise to thinking that it was perhaps in these media where Gaudí contacted a Masonic Lodge.
To better understand some characters who influenced Gaudí, we must say that François Maria Charles Fourier was a French socialist from the first part of the 19th century and one of the parents of cooperativism. Fourier was a scathing critic of the economy and capitalism of his time. Adversary of industrialization, urban civilization, liberalism and family based on marriage and monogamy. The jovial character with which Fourier makes some of his criticisms makes him one of the greatest satirists of all time. He proposed the creation of production and consumption units, based on an integral and self-sufficient cooperativism as well as the free persecution of what he called individual passions and their development; which would build a state that called harmony. In this way he anticipates the line of libertarian socialism within the socialist movement but also critical lines of bourgeois and patriarchal morals based on the nuclear family and on the restrictive Christian morality of desire and pleasure and therefore partly on psychoanalysis. Thus, the twentieth century found interest in the libertarian perspectives of quasi-hedonism such as those of Herbert Marcuse and his freudomarxism, or those of André Breton, leader of the surrealist movement. He also used the word feminism in 1837; and already in 1808 he argued openly in favor of gender equality between men and women. Followers of his ideas established intentional communities such as Reunion in Texas, and the North American Phalanx, in New Jersey, in the mid-19th century.
In regards to John Ruskin, he was a British writer, art critic and sociologist, one of the great masters of English prose. Ruskin's work stands out for the excellence of his style. Rebelling against the aesthetic numbness and pernicious social effects of the Industrial Revolution, he formulated the theory that essentially spiritual art reached its zenith in the Gothic of the late Middle Ages, a style of religious inspiration and moral ardor. His idea of beauty has a double nature: the abstract beauty of things, without any consideration other than form; and the one that can be recognized after a process of elaboration and patient work of the artist in the work (hence his great admiration for Fra Angelico).
In Gaudí's work there are innumerable examples of esoteric symbology related to Freemasonry, alchemy and hermeticism. For example, the melting furnace or atanor is the most characteristic instrument of an alchemical laboratory. In the Parc Güell, on the steps of the entrance, we find a tripod-shaped structure that contains a rough stone, raw, perpetually wetted by a small spout. This element represents the basic structure of an alchemist melting furnace and is a copy of the model that appears on a medallion of the main porch of the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral. Basically, the atanor consists of an outer shell composed of refractory bricks or cement. Its interior is full of ashes that surround the "philosophical egg", the glass sphere inside which is the raw material or rough stone. A fire located in the interior is responsible for heating the egg, but not directly, since it is blurred by ashes. Alchemy, in addition to a spiritual technique or mystical form, was also based on work on minerals and specific physical operations and was characterized by equivalence or parallelism between laboratory operations and the alchemist's experiences in his own body. In this way, the atanor represented the reproduction of the body, the sulfur was the soul, the mercury was the spirit, the sun the heart and the fire the blood. The etymologies of the word atanor are two: on the one hand it would derive from the Arabic “attannûr” or oven; and on the other it would come from the Greek word "thanatos" or death, which, preceded by the particle "a", would express the meaning "no death", that is, eternal life.
Another example is "the three degrees of perfection of matter." Here we refer to the rough stone found inside the atanor. The rough stone represents the first degree of perfection of the matter, the second grade is represented by the rough stone in the shape of a cube, and thirdly a pointed end cube, that is, with an overlapping pyramid. In Masonic symbology these three forms also represent the three positions that can be assumed within the Lodge: apprentice, companion and teacher; as were the traditional degrees of medieval worker brotherhoods. Gaudí reflected in the Bellesguard tower, also known as Casa Figueras, all this symbolism. The structure of the building, located at the foot of the Collserola mountain range and built with stone and brick, is formed by a cube crowned by a truncated pyramid. The Freemasons' order says that "every man must carve his stone." And that stone will be both the cornerstone of the temple and the cornerstone of the Mason's personality. The further work of improvement will consist of superimposing a pyramid on the cube.
A third example is the cross in six directions. This element, which is found in most Gaudí projects and constructions, is a representation of a principle rooted in their beliefs but located, at least formally, within the field of the Church. Gaudí used two techniques to make the crosses in six directions: The first one can be found in the Santa Teresa school in Barcelona and is an evident development of the cubic stone; It is the spatial projection of the cubic stone. In the “Turó de les Mines” of the Parc Güell there are three crosses that are no more than two taus to which two cubes crowned by their corresponding pyramids have been superimposed. The Tau "T" is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet and nineteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, which corresponds to what is called "te" in ours. But it is also a sign or sign, a symbol. These taus indicate the north-south and east-west directions and intertwined, they indicate the four cardinal points.
The third cross, meanwhile, is an arrow that indicates an ascending direction. Initial of the word earth, the tau is a symbol of remote origin that appears in megalithic monuments of the Balearic Islands in the form of taules, a pedestal holding a stony surface. Within Freemasonry, the tau has a precise symbolism. On the one hand, it would represent Matusael, the son of Cain who would create this symbol to recognize his descendants and, on the other, it would be the sign of recognition that the officiant would perform with his right hand in the ceremony of access to the degree of Master. Let us observe that the biblical compilers make two lineages from Adam and Eve: the first would begin in Cain, and would continue with Henoc (or Enoch), Irad, Mahujael, Matusael and Lamec, which in turn would have Jabel, Jubal and Tubal, three civilizing patriarchs. The second lineage is that of Set, and would be composed of the following patriarchs: Set, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Henoc, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah, who had Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Another important example is the letter X, which is of great importance in Masonic symbolism. This symbol is found in the vaults of the crypt of Colonia Güell, where it is repeated up to thirteen times, and also on the porch of the Birth of the Holy Family, on the cross that crowns the Tree of Life, which shows a huge X This symbol is made on the basis of a regular hexagon and this forms the inner perimeter of two interlaced equilateral triangles, which would form the star of David, which would be the alchemical notation of the four basic elements. The hexagon is a very repeated form in Gaudí's work, from which a volumetric cube can even be extracted if we divide the hexagon into three rhombuses. It should be remembered that the X, in addition, is the alchemical notation of the Crucible, a necessary instrument for the hermetic work. Likewise, the X is also related by tradition to the apostle Andrew, crucified on a cross with this form.
We cannot leave the pelican's example out of band. This animal, once a symbol of Christ, can be found in the Museum of the Sagrada Familia and was intended for the Portico of the Birth. One of the best known versions about the figure of the pelican is the one that speaks of feeling such a strong love for his children that, in the case of starvation, he would open his belly with his own beak to feed them. Another version says that, irritated because his young beat him with his wings, he killed them and then, regretted, committed suicide by sticking his beak in the belly. In a final version of the topic suicide is ruled out and that the spike is stuck in the belly and it is said that her tears resurrect her dead young. The 18th grade of the order of the Freemasons, called the "Rosicrucian grade, " has the pelican as a symbol of opening its belly and surrounded by its children; on his head there is a cross with an incised red rose and the legend INRI The pelican represents the latent divine spark that nests in man, his blood is a vehicle of life and resurrection and its color is white, symbolizing the overcoming of the first phase of Alchemical work. The third phase involves going through the experience of red, which is reflected in the explosion of a large red rose in the center of the chest.
But perhaps one of the most significant examples is the salamander, the snake and the llamas. It is possible to make a hermetic interpretation of the symbology of this element, which is the only integrator of the whole set: a snake head located in the center of a large disk, wrapped in flames and these of water. Hermeticists were known as "philosophers by fire" and their work was based on ordering chaos; as at the beginning of time ruin and evil spread throughout the world through the work of the snake, to order that chaos it is necessary to burn it. Thus, the circle symbolizes chaos, oriflama is the flame that contains sulfur and the snake is the mercurial spirit.
We must also point to the lizard as an important symbol. It is the animal that descends from the atanor to the disc described above and that has been interpreted as a salamander, an iguana and even a crocodile, but its most important characteristic is its sinuous back. It is a static image that suggests a very pronounced sensation of movement, a new representation of the original mercury, a reiteration of the functions of the atanor, that is, to act apart, decant the fixed parts of the volatile ore. The steps of the Parc Güell are presented to us as well as an airtight paradigm that contains the principles of the work and not in vain are many alchemical texts that insist that all the work is done through mercury.
The symbolism of the dry tree and the tree of life is also remarkable. Gaudí's love for nature was always present in all his work. Its constructions are full of ornamental elements that refer to the plant kingdom. The alchemical symbolism is full of images related to agriculture and the vegetable kingdom. The Dry Tree represents the symbol of the reduced metals of its minerals and melts; The temperature of the oven has caused them to lose life and, therefore, they must be quickened. In the Dry Tree there is always a spark of life, the one that can make its resurrection possible; in fact, some leaves can always be seen on it that indicate the possibility of greening again. The image of the Dry Tree was placed by Gaud in his capital works, representing a petrified plant nature that maintains, however, a focus of life. Many of these images are found in Parc G ell. The Tree of Life, as its name indicates, is the immortal tree, the symbol of eternal life. The most repetitive iconographic representation of this kind of tree is the cypress. The Catalan architect placed him in the center of the portico of the Birth of the Sagrada Familia, surrounded by white doves, which in turn symbolized the renewed souls that ascend to the sky.
But one of the most sublime examples of Gaudinian symbology is the dragon and the labyrinth. The image of the dragon is a constant in the work of Gaud . Certainly, it is an image that we immediately associate with the legend of Sant Jordi, patron of Catalonia, but, unlike other modernist architects, Gaud always represents it alone. The dragon located on the gate of the G ell pavilions is inspired by Verdaguer's La Atl ntida ; since it is a chained dragon that guards access to the garden of the Hesperides. The dragon is linked to the symbolism of the snake, it is nothing other than a winged snake that throws flames through its mouth or nose. The Rosicrucians introduced images of knights that stuck their spears into furious dragons. When analyzing the mythical characteristics of this animal, its burning arc appears as the representation of our most uncontrollable instincts. To overcome this force, to dominate our spirit, supposes the possibility of penetrating into the domains of Being.
There are winged ones, with great jaws and fearsome tongue, with steel scales, fierce eyes and imposing claw legs. Others have less menacing expression, lack legs and wings, and their body evokes the sinuousness of the snake or the nervousness of the lizard. They appear in unexpected places, under eaves, cornices and balconies, in door lintels, camouflaged in lamps, doorknobs, and behaving like rampant beings, climbers, proud, always ready to wield their hooked nails. So are the dragons that live in Barcelona, whether they are representations in stone, forge, wood, tile, mosaic or trencad s. The Eixample of Barcelona is the area with the highest density of dragons, possibly because many modernist buildings were built there and modernism seems to like dragons.
Some specimens appear next to Sant Jordi, the knightly hero hero of Catalonia, but others are alone, and the most are paired or in groups, and differ greatly in sizes, shapes and attitudes. According to the architect Juan Bassegoda Nonell, who was the head of the Gaudí Chair for more than thirty years, “The figure of the dragon, a non-existent being, seduced a lot in modernism, because it is an exotic character, and because modernism is a mixture of the neo-gothic and the exotic ”. There are representations of dragons in the city from the Middle Ages and samples are found in the cathedral and in some ancient churches. But the uniqueness that Barcelona brings to the cultural and iconographic universe of the dragon is mainly due to the work of Gaudí, which embodied here two very special dragons: that of the trencadís of the Parc Güell, and that of wrought iron of the Güell estate, both loaded of great symbolism. "Gaudí's dragons are drawn from mythology and history, and reflect the ideas of the Count of Güell about the Renaixença: Catalanism, mythology and religion, " according to Bassegoda.
Así, el dragón de la puerta de la finca Güell es Ladón, fiero guardián de la entrada del jardín de las hespérides, que fue muerto por Hércules, según se relata en L'Atlàntida de Jacint Verdaguer. Parece ser que estaba dedicada al marqués de Comillas, suegro de Güell. Ese dragón imponente, de más de cinco metros de envergadura, con fauces y dientes recortados, alas de murciélago y cola en espiral, sorprende a los turistas por su ferocidad. En el otro extremo tenemos al dragón de colorines del Park Güell, que es Pitón, la serpiente del templo del oráculo de Delfos que, según la mitología griega, cayó muerta a manos de Apolo, quien la enterró en el sótano del templo y acabó convirtiéndose en protectora de las aguas subterráneas. Según el profesor Bassegoda, “el templo de Delfos era dórico, y por eso Eusebio Güell quiso que las columnas del parque que encargó a Gaudí fueran de tipo dórico”.
Es realmente sorprendente que en una ciudad occidental como Barcelona puedan observarse tantos dragones de todos los tamaños, representados como cocodrilos, serpientes, lagartos, salamandras, reptiles, dragones y saurios en general. Si excluimos el lomo de dragón del tejado de la casa Batlló, el más grande resulta ser el del parque de la Espanya Industrial, de 32 metros de longitud y 150 toneladas de peso, mientras que el más pequeño es una pareja engarzada en los tiradores de las puertas del Pati dels Tarongers, en el Palau de la Generalitat. También son reseñables las cuatro dragonas de la pastelería Foix de Sarrià, ya que son de las poquísimas féminas de dragón representadas en la ciudad; el famoso dragón chino de la casa de los Paraigües de la Rambla, un edificio premodernista de Josep Vilaseca; los cocodrilos sumergidos en las aguas de la fuente de la plaza Espanya; o las grandes lagartijas gaudínianas del templo de la Sagrada Família.
Impresionan sus ojos altivos y firmes. La palabra dragón viene del latín draco, que procede del griego drákon, a su vez derivado de la voz griega dérkomai, que significa 'mirar con fijeza'. Según algunos eruditos, esa cualidad explicaría su condición de guardián mítico de doncellas y tesoros, combatidos por dioses, santos o héroes, aunque el combate legendario entre el caballero y el dragón se vincula a mitos indoeuropeos de lucha entre dioses de la guerra y el dragón demoniaco bíblico-babilonio. Para Catalunya, ese caballero es Sant Jordi, que en 1456 fue declarado patrón por las Cortes Catalanas, reunidas en el coro de la catedral de Barcelona. Es también patrón de Aragón, Inglaterra, Portugal, Grecia, Polonia, Lituania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Rusia y Georgia, entre otros países. De Sant Jordi está más documentado su culto que su existencia, pero la leyenda lo sitúa en el siglo III, nacido en Capadocia o Nicomedia, y mártir por decapitación durante la persecución de los cristianos por el emperador romano Diocleciano. Su leyenda llegó a estas tierras en el siglo XV.
Algunos dragones de Barcelona aparecen junto a Sant Jordi, mientras otros ejemplares son orientales y denotan el gusto por los elementos exóticos de la burguesía catalana en los tiempos del modernismo. En aquella época la decoración era fundamental, así que los dragones se representaban en muebles, puertas, joyas y cortinas. Los gustos actuales dificultan su utilización como elemento decorativo pese al crecimiento de la población china ya que un escritor como Carlos Ruiz Zafón acostumbre a llevar uno en la solapa. Los dragones orientales, seres sin alas pero voladores, se consideran seres benévolos, cargados de sabiduría, mientras que los dragones occidentales suelen ser considerados maléficos. Según el arquitecto Bassegoda, “El dragón es un monstruo inventado, por lo que cada artista ha podido apelar a su propia imaginación a la hora de plasmarlo, y por eso son tan diversos”. Pero no todo lo referente a los dragones puede considerarse simplemente como un elemento decorativo. Para profundizar en este tema, recomiendo leer el artículo “los dioses serpiente y dragón en la mitología, ¿reflejan una realidad en las antiguas civilizaciones?”
Tal como hemos comentado anteriormente, algunos de sus biógrafos argumentan que Gaudí fue masón y que algunas de sus obras como el templo de la Sagrada Familia y el Parc Güell contienen múltiples símbolos de la masonería. El escritor Josep Maria Carandell analiza en su libro ”El Parque Güell, utopía de Gaudí”, una gran cantidad de detalles de claro origen masónico y afirma que pertenecía a una organización secreta ”probablemente relacionada con la masonería inglesa”. Pero el primero en explicar la pertenencia de Gaudí a la masonería fue el escritor anarquista Joan Llarch, en el libro ”Gaudí, una biografía mágica”. Llarch asegura que Gaudí, en sus excursiones por la montaña, habría ingerido el hongo alucinógeno ”Amanita Muscaria”, que tiempo después colocaría como adorno en una de las casitas situadas a la entrada del Parc Güell. Al parecer, este hongo provoca estados alterados de conciencia y el tránsito hacia otra realidad. ¿Sería en ese estado en el que Gaudí habría imaginado las formas características de su arquitectura?
Eduardo Cruz, uno de sus biógrafos, asegura que perteneció a la Orden de los Rosacruz y otros insinúan que tuvo tendencias panteístas y ateas. Los detractores de estas teorías aseguran que un cristiano como Gaudí no podía ser de ningún modo masón. De todos modos en la historia de la masonería puede comprobarse la pertenencia a la misma de insignes cristianos. Aquí tenemos que señalar dos etapas diferentes en la vida de Gaudí. Por una parte tenemos a un Gaudí que en su juventud vivió en un ambiente de sociedades secretas e iniciáticas, cuya compañía parece que nunca terminó de abandonar por completo, tal y como lo demuestra la amistad con el pintor uruguayo y notorio francmason neopitagórico Joaquim Torres García. Y por otra, tenemos a un Gaudí que en su madurez, con el paso de los años, fue acentuando su catolicismo, transformándose en un místico, al margen de cualquier obediencia, rito o disciplina.
El esoterismo de Gaudí, Barcelona y el culto al dragón
