Gaudí on the small screen: from 'The Triplets of Belleville' to 'City of Shadows'

BarcelonaA building as iconic as the Sagrada Família and an architect as relevant as Antoni Gaudí were bound to make their way onto television. Mostly, the approach to the temple and its creator has been through documentary productions such as Sagrada família, el repte de Gaudí, a Sense ficció from 2022, or Objectiu Sagrada Família, an eight-episode documentary series from Betevé. The basilica has also been of interest to international non-fiction productions, such as the chapter dedicated to it by the BBC program The Travel Show, which is currently not available on platforms within our reach. But Gaudí and his work have also had appearances in fiction. We review three of the most notable ones.

'The Triplets'

Anna, Teresa and Helena, that is, The Triplets, have been essential characters for young children to delve into popular tales and also to get to know figures from the world of art and architecture such as Antoni Gaudí. The three mischievous sisters have had adventures alongside the architect on more than one occasion. Two of the chapters from the animated series that could be seen on Super 3 and is still available on the platform, brought Anna, Teresa and Helena together with Gaudí. In The Triplets and Gaudí's WorkshopThe three twins and the ghosts of the QuarryThe Triplets and the Ghosts of La Pedrera, the girls shared with the architect one of the most important moments of his career: the construction of Casa Milà.

These two episodes are not the only foray of the three triplets into Gaudí's world. In 2002, a feature film was released – succinctly titled The Triplets and Gaudí– in which the three girls meet a Gaudí who has lost his enthusiasm after the great building he had designed in Manhattan did not go ahead. Anna, Helena and Teresa will help him regain his creative strength.

'Fringe'

The Manhattan building mentioned in the movie The Parent Trap did not become a reality, but if there's one thing series have, it's that they are capable of imagining alternative worlds. In the science fiction series Fringe, they knew a lot about that. In one of the two parallel universes the series had, Gaudí's project – the Hotel Attraction – did exist. In the final chapter of the second season, titled Over there, it can be clearly seen how in the alternative world the building imagined by the Catalan architect is part of the skyline of New York and different perspectives of it are shown.

The Hotel Attraction project was not known until 1956, when the sculptor Joan Matamala i Flotats, who had worked on the Sagrada Família, published When the New Continent called Gaudí (1908-1911), in which he revealed the existence of the never-built building. Gaudí received the commission from an American businessman and worked on the project between 1908 and 1911. In the midst of a race to build the tallest building in the city, the hotel Gaudí proposed for the Lower Manhattan area was to be 360 meters high (the Empire State Building, built in 1929 and 1931, is 382 meters). The sketches that remain suggest that the hotel would have had some elements quite similar to those of the Sagrada Família. In fact, the construction of the basilica, as well as La Pedrera and Park Güell, meant that Gaudí ultimately did not realize his American dream.

In 2003, when work was underway on the reconstruction of Ground Zero in New York after 9/11, the possibility of reviving the idea of the Hotel Attraction was offered from Catalonia, but the American authorities rejected the proposal.

'City of shadows'

The latest television production in which Antoni Gaudí has had a relevant presence has been in the thrillerCiudad de sombras, a Netflix series. The fiction, which is the last project in which Verónica Echegui participated before her death, follows a serial killer who uses the architect's buildings as the setting for his macabre crimes. In fact, Ciudad de sombras begins with a businessman hanged and burned alive on the facade of Casa Milà and ends with the two protagonist investigators, Milo (Verónica Echegui) and Rebeca (Verónica Echegui), running to try to prevent a tragedy at the Sagrada Família during its consecration as a basilica by Pope Benedict XVI. Would Gaudí ever have imagined that his works, very often with spiritual connections, could be a source of inspiration for evil?