What does it involve
The PINNAE Foundation opens the year 2026 with the temporary exhibition El Penedès Through Gaudí’s Eyes. Wine and Its People, a proposal that invites visitors to delve into the vital and creative universe of Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (1852–1926). On the occasion of the centenary of his death, the exhibition presents a lesser-known perspective: his relationship with the Penedès region and with wine culture.
What is included?
The project offers an opportunity to rediscover the creative power of the brilliant architect and to explore some of his most personal ties with the Penedès, while also shedding light on his relationship with the world of winegrowing and winemaking—an aspect often overlooked in traditional accounts of Antoni Gaudí i Cornet. In this sense, the exhibition highlights his method of innovating from within tradition and the mentorship he received from distinguished figures of the Penedès within the cultural and social context of the time.
Gaudí and Wine
The visit proposes a journey to the vital and creative origins of Antoni Gaudí i Cornet, emphasizing his deep connection with nature, the land, and the territory. His childhood, marked by fragile health, led him to spend long periods at the family farmhouse in Riudoms, where contact with rural life and agricultural work shaped an attentive and perceptive outlook that would become the foundation of his later work.
Deeply rooted in his homeland, Gaudí inherited from his family—linked to Vilafranca del Penedès and the trade of coppersmithing—a language of forms, volumes, and materials that he would later transform into architecture. During his training in Barcelona, his relationship with the Penedès intensified through key thinkers and intellectuals, and took shape in documented visits, such as that of November 1880 to Vilafranca and Olesa de Bonesvalls, where he observed buildings, structures, and ceremonial elements with scientific rigor.
His bond with the territory was also physical: Gaudí drew topographical plans of wine estates, and the quarries of Garraf, Olèrdola, and Masllorenç supplied the stone for his major works. For Gaudí, wine was a social and almost sacred act—a celebration of life that crystallized in buildings such as the Celler del Garraf, conceived as a temple dedicated to the fruit of the earth.
In a context of modernization and progress, the architect applied his maxim of wasting nothing, reusing fragments of cava bottles from Sant Sadurní in the chimneys of La Pedrera, turning an everyday gesture into poetic alchemy. His architecture engages in dialogue with collective symbols such as the castells (human towers), an analogy formulated by Cèsar Martinell and confirmed by Yasuo Matsukura, who interprets the towers of the Sagrada Família as a stone “pinya” in motion.
Gaudí’s legacy took strong root in the Penedès through architects influenced by his teaching, such as Santiago Güell, and extends to the Wine Cathedrals by Cèsar Martinell and the Codorníu Winery by Josep Puig i Cadafalch. Thus, Gaudí’s work reveals itself to be inseparable from the landscape of the Penedès: in every curve, every stone, and every play of light, a fragment of this land pulses—reminding us that this universal genius was also a son of this territory.
