This monographic study approaches Gaudí (1852-1926) in his most essential role: as the designer who synthesised art and technique. David Ferrer analyses numerous designs from such disparate fields as wrought ironwork and flooring with the purpose of explaining their genesis, concluding that, beneath their apparent plastic irrationalism, behind their dreamy, fantastic forms, lays a strict functional logic based on the rationalistic ideas of Viollet-le-Duc.