Sagrada Familia

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Today was devoted to tours of Barcelona’s most famous landmark, the Basilica de Sagrada Familia (Holy Family), designed by Antonio Gaudí. We had an English language tour, went up a tower, and covered more of it on our own. It was all quite amazing.

Work began in 1888 as a traditional neo-gothic building, and Gaudi took over from the original architect early on. He completely changed the appearance and developed new techniques of building structure as he did so, focusing on parabaloids and hyperboloids, making a structure taller, lighter, and airier than other Gothic cathedral constructions. To visualize many of the shapes and to determine strengths necessary for many of the columns, he built an upside down model using string and small bags of sand proportionate to the weights. He could then see what shapes developed naturally. His concept for the interior was to represent a forest, with the 80 major interior columns branching to support upper structures. The result is a huge interior space, one of the largest in the world (we have not checked data) holding 8000 worshipers, with incredible natural light from stained glass windows. When finished, the central tower is to be the tallest building in Barcelona.

The basilica is still being built. Gaudi recognized it would not be finished in his lifetime and thought that a good thing, so that many generations would feel ownership. Only one of the four east towers was finished on his death, with 17 more to go, not to mention the nave, apse, cloister, and everything else. Construction proceeded slowly, financed mostly by donations from the local community. When Gary saw it in 1973, he remembers 6 or 8 towers, and still no ground level “church” space. It was a big construction site surrounded by chain link fence. Since the 1992 Olympics, public interest has taken off, and now tourist admission fees are paying for rapid completion. Apparently the current architect believes the limiting factor is time enough to do it right, and there is plenty of money. So many tourists want to see it that you need to buy a ticket a few weeks in advance to enter at the time you want. (Don’t be late, you may not be let in!) Changes are happening very fast. The floor was installed in 2010 in time for Pope Benedict to sanctify the sanctuary, the east entrance, where we entered, was opened about two years ago, and the left-most of the three doors there was opened just six weeks ago. The goal is to finish by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death.

We went to the spaces reserved for prayer and reflection and sent prayers each to his/her own. Another highlight, so to speak, was taking an elevator up one of the east towers for an overlook of Barcelona. There was an open air bridge to the adjacent tower, then walking down some 400 steps in a narrow winding staircase. It was an easy descent, punctuated by catching views outside the tower then waiting a moment for eyes to readjust to the dimness inside. It was fun looking at the spiral hole down the center, too.

Building the basilica was absolutely Gaudi’s life’s work and passion. There are so many details one could spend days digging in to it all, and then it raises questions like “do architects today use some of Gaudi’s structural inventions?, how many of these details are common in cathedrals?” But after four hours our brains were full, our feet sore, and our tummies empty, so we exited (return not permitted) to have lunch.

We took the metro to the vicinity of some art museums, not the better known ones, since we have a six museum pass in order to get into the Picasso Museum. We decided not to visit this afternoon and walked back to our hotel. Madalyn went in while Gary went shopping for ear buds for his phone, to substitute for the ones he left at home. He then went for a stroll for some time to himself and ended up in the Plaça del Rei. In 1973 he heard this was where Columbus was dispatched by Ferdinand and Isabella (“welcomed back” is the legend reported in tour books today), so it was one of the places he had a vague memory of. Back then he found it at dusk, very empty down narrow alleys, so he didn’t linger. Today there are museums and a café and plenty of people. Times have changed.

After relaxing in the room a bit, including seeing the finish of another stage of the Vuelta de España we went out for dinner, trying the El Born district. We ate at a delightful small restaurant with some unique dishes beyond the usual fare. The night was capped with a trio of street artists singing Puccini arias with their voices resounding between the walls of the cathedral and adjacent buildings. A delightful evening!

(Our apologies for some pictures being on their sides. Travelblog.org's tools to rotate images are not working.)

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