Originally published at: Basílica de la Sagrada Família to release final construction timeline in 2024 | Boing Boing
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There is so much to take in.
That chain model and the stained glass were my favourites amongst so many details.
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From what I’ve heard coupled with what I recall, visiting Basílica de la Sagrada Família borders on the sensorium overload experienced by virgin skydivers, crudely described in terms of time dilation effects that compress experiences into infinitely dense memories, rich with granular detail almost too fine to unpack. This is what I meant in the Picasso self-portrait post about OD’ing on Gaudí, because all of Barcelona is a ripple cresting long after Gaudí cast his first stone, forever altering the texture of Catalunya’s societal fabric and definition of what it means to be a Catalonian/Spaniard.
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It’s an amazing space to visit. Afterward, on the bus back to our hotel my mom did ask me “who were the Sagradas?” Many of Gaudi’s buildings are known by the family name of the owners, after all. I knew he died from being hit by a tram, but not that he didn’t get good care because he was thought to be poor.
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It is truly an amazing place: it feels like worshipping in a forest inside; it looks like it was built by space bees; it’s an engineering marvel. Absolutely don’t miss it if you go to Barcelona. There’s lots of other great reasons to go to Barcelona, but put this at the top of the list.
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The space bee’s a really great analogy. While touring the different buildings and especially Park Güell, I got a feeling akin to reading about the Star Wars EU Yuuzhan Vong organic growth that accreted around buildings before Disney killed off that whole Star Wars canon.
Yeah, those Catenary Arches were super dope at Casa Batlló were super dope along with the chainmail curtains:
The Catenary Arches forming the lattice for the Casa Milà roof were super awesome too:
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Gaudí’s designs are amazing, and absolutely by themselves plenty of reason to visit Barcelona. The Sagrada Familia is definitely the pinnacle of it, the inside looks like stone dreaming of being a forest. I’m not Christian myself, but it really seems like a reverent, loving monument to the beauty of creation.
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I love this quote from Etsuru Sotoo:
Etsuru Sotoo began his lifelong devotion to understanding Antoni Gaudí while cutting stone to the beat of a dynamically static design set 27 years before Sotoo’s birth in 1953. Etsuru Sotoo goes so far as to admit “Well… I must confess that my conversion to — Catholicism — was just a way for me to know Gaudí.”
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you have to see the movie ‘indecent proposal’… circa 1993…
it comes at a time when the boyfriend is teaching a class of architects
some simple lessons and in the slide show comes to this item louis kahn
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In most of the projects Gaudi built after the foundations of the Sagrada Familia were laid, he snuck in features like arches and windows that were aligned to feature views of the distant cathedral from all parts of the city, as if they were picture frames.
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I will be there in two weeks. Can’t wait to finally see it in person.
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Make time to stop in Cocoa Sampka and have chocolate and churros.
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My wife & I visited in 2004 and I don’t even remember much about the inside (though we were definitely in there). If the ceiling had looked anything like that then, I’d sure think that I’d remember. But, mainly I remember the climb up one tower, to the outdoor crossing to another tower – an experience that induces both claustrophobia and acrophobia – but while I was up/out there I didn’t want to leave, just keep taking in the details e.g.:
Haven’t been back since; that was our last trip together BK (before kids), although one was actually on-the-way…
The Oculus by the new World Trade Center is the only other place I’ve visited that even reminds me of this.
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Get your tickets in advance and don’t miss your entry time. On a bright day, the early morning is blue/green light inside, late afternoon is red/gold. Very, very different feelings just by the lighting through those windows.
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I’ve always been awed by construction projects that were begun with the understanding that they wouldn’t be completed within a single human lifetime. Something about a multigenerational effort to create something beautiful makes me feel a little better about humanity.
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An illustration of the finished product:
It’s amazing how adding each set of towers changes the whole form.
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When I took a tour about ten years back, the guide mentioned that the roof of the main sanctuary had been rushed into existence a mere 100 years after construction began because a pope was coming to visit. She sounded pretty annoyed that a mere pope could have such a disproportionate influence over the process.
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Working on those kind of engineering projects certainly gives one a different perspective. The Los Angeles Cathedral is fairly plain and pales in comparison to most of the great old cathedrals of the world, but it was still designed to last a minimum of 500 years. I helped work on the giant front doors that were made from a stainless steel structure clad with silicon bronze panels, and we had to consider all kinds of things like minor galvanic corrosion issues that would normally never be a factor of concern if it only needed to last a century or so.
During the course of that project I had my wisdom teeth removed, so I snuck them into a time capsule that’s inside the doors. With any luck some future civilization will assume they were relics from an important saint.
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