What was the profession of Antoni Gaudí's father?

Antoni Gaudí’s father was a coppersmith.

His father, Francesc Gaudí i Serra, worked with copper in the family’s craft tradition. Gaudí later described himself as the son, grandson and great-grandson of coppersmiths, linking his architectural understanding of form and space to that hands-on metalworking background.

Coppersmithing involved shaping copper vessels and objects, often through hammering and forming sheets of metal. This was a skilled trade rather than the ironworking associated with a blacksmith, which explains why “blacksmith” is a tempting but incorrect alternative.

Gaudí grew up in the Catalan region of Baix Camp, where his family’s workshop environment and the landscapes around Reus and Riudoms influenced his visual imagination. His birthplace is disputed between those neighbouring municipalities, but the occupation of his father is consistently identified as coppersmith. Gaudí’s later architecture likewise depended on practical experimentation with materials, including iron, ceramics, stone and glass.