Gaudí's funicular model for the Colonia Güell
Modelo funicular de Gaudí para la Colonia Güell
- Date
- 1898-1908 · confidence high
- Place
- Colonia Güell, Santa Coloma de Cervelló, Barcelona, Spain
- Credited to
- Antoni Gaudí
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
To design the church of the Colonia Güell, Gaudí built a model of strings with small shot-filled bags hung from them which, seen upside down, gave the lines of arches and vaults working in pure compression. It was his method for finding the geometry of the structure and shaped the Sagrada Família.
The principle of the inverted hanging chain comes from Hooke (1675) and Poleni, who applied it to the dome of St Peter's (1748); what is original in Gaudí is carrying it into a three-dimensional funicular model of an entire church.
What it led to
- the catenary forms of the crypt of the Colonia Güell (works from 1908)
- the structural design of the Sagrada Família
- the form-finding of Frei Otto and Heinz Isler