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Antoni Gaudí i Cornet is the most famous proponent of
Barcelona’s
modernisme
(Art Nouveau style) and, together
with his contemporaries Lluís Domènech i Montaner and
Josep Puig i Cadafalch, created the weird and wonderful
buildings that are a major draw for visitors to Barcelona
today. The Catalan offshoot of Art Nouveau was the
expression of a renewed upsurge in Catalan nationalism. The
early nineteenth-century economic recovery in Catalunya
had provided the initial impetus, and the subsequent cultural
renaissance – the Renaixença – led to the fresh stirrings of a
new Catalan awareness and identity.
Antoni Gaudí and
modernisme