The year 2026 marks a century since the death of the visionary Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. He died after being hit by a tram in central Barcelona in June 1926, not far from the Sagrada Famìlia, his towering basilica that — despite still being under construction today — dominates the city’s skyline and recently became the world’s tallest church.

Next year will mark the 10-year anniversary of another tragedy. On August 17, 2017, terrorists pledging their allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) rammed a vehicle along the pedestrian boulevard of Las Ramblas, one of Barcelona’s main thoroughfares, killing 14 people. They were motivated, at least in part, by a desire to restore Muslim rule over Spain.

But these Spanish Muslim terrorists had essentially attacked part of Spain’s Muslim past. Las Ramblas comes from the Arabic word raml [sand]. Before it was urbanised, Las Ramblas was a wadi, a dry river bed.

However, the attackers’ original plan was to place bombs in Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia. This would have carried a similar irony to the strike on Las Ramblas. Though a devout Christian, Gaudí used Islamic motifs throughout his architecture, including in Casa Vicens and Park Guell, which are extensively decorated with Moorish-style tiles known as azulejo [tint-glazed ceramic tilework] in Spanish, a word that comes from the Arabic al-zalij.

Antoni Gaudí’s celebrated architecture was greatly influenced by the enduring legacy of Muslim Spain,........

© Dawn (Magazines)