Antoni Gaudí, cont.

By listening to some audio tour today, we stumbled upon the most interesting thing that Barcelona has had to offer.  Large enough to hold 10,000 worshippers when completed, La Sagrada Familia is Barcelona’s most famous fascination. For those faithful blog readers (Priya), some of this might be review.  Yes, I have visited and written about the church before but not in detail, given my viewing conditions (we snapped a few pictures on a guided tour while our bus was stopped at a stoplight), which were not exactly ideal.  Today, on the other hand, Mom and I were able to spend as many undisturbed hours there as we pleased, with only our audio tour headset to accompany us. 

 

We debated whether or not spending the extra €2,50 per person on some headphones would be worth it – but boy were we glad at the end of the day!  There was so much to learn that one misses simply passing through the construction site.  As it turns out, every little speck of that church was going according to plan.  When one feels the certain tranquility of nature being captured by stone walls and columns – that is not by chance.  When one notices that the lighting in the church is conveniently perfect for taking pictures as well as achieving peaceful reflection– that is not by chance either.  In the words of Gaudí, “the amount of light should be just right, not too much, not too little, since having too much or too little light can both cause blindness…” The stained glass windows were strategically placed at unusual angles of the church, some painted, some not.  Each window, painted not with pictures or scenes of the Bible, but rather color fragments, contained geometrical shapes that specifically symbolized a point in time among the life and history of Jesus Christ. 

 

Antoni Gaudí was the master of Christian Symbolism.

 

When Gaudí was a child, he lived constantly in poor health. He was unable to start school at the same time as most other children, and instead stayed in constant care of his mother, who took him to spend much of his time in nature, where he says he connected with his Creator and found inspiration for his future designs. “Those who look for the laws of Nature as a support for their new works collaborate with the creator,” Gaudí observed.  He was all about using the environment’s natural beauty to achieve balance and equilibrium that created the perfect place of meditation, while telling with accuracy the story of the Savior from the virgin birth to the ascension to the present-day legacy of the church.  There was a patterned theme than ran throughout the giant structure that is La Sagrada Familia. With its three (eventually four) great facades, each telling a separate part of Jesus’ life – the Nativity, Passion, and Glory – I could see the changing theme in plant life, animal life, shapes, and even types of minerals used in Gaudi’s construction.  No square inch was ever the same.  Standing on the inside, from the altar where a priest will stand in some twenty years, I observed the columns with a keen eye.  They looked the same.  But with the help of my headphones I saw eight completely different structures! (This is why I’m not an artist or mathematician).  Starting from the bases of the columns, which were each made of a different material depending on the weight it had to hold, I could then see that they each had a star-shaped foundation, which twisted and turned until the five pointed edges of the stars were no more, and the top of the columns seemed like almost perfectly rounded cylinders.  In addition to Gaudí’s genius, these stone trees branched off near the ceiling, which was composed of palm leaves – when the architect originally cleared the land for his structure, the field was filled with nothing but yellow flowers and a palm tree, which he remembered in the ceiling.  I found myself standing in the middle of the magic forest that I once invented in my mind of six years, but I think Gaudí’s imagination takes the prize.  He was right; I found my perfect place of meditation – and how convenient that it is a perfect place of worship as well!

 

I could talk about the geometry and paralleled symbolism for a while, but I don’t think I will for two reasons.  A) It is 2:20 in the morning and my mom’s going to be angry when she reads this, and B) That would take several more paragraphs.  Oh yeah, and C) I don’t understand most of it.  But Mr. Forth would be proud to know that I had “fun with math,” as he puts it, when I used my knowledge of conic sections to decipher some blueprints on display! I guess I didn’t sleep through all of Algebra after all.  I would love to stay and enlighten you all on the most fascinating structure I’ve ever laid my two eyes on, but I think I’ll tell you about the architect instead, since I’ve already titled this entry “Antoni Gaudí, cont.”.

 

Gaudí never used blueprints.  The blueprints I’ve just mentioned are ones made and needed by his successors in the mission to finish La Sagrada Familila.  Gaudí never needed plans; he used imagination. Gaudí dedicated the last twelve years of his life working on the church, but died an accidental death, earlier than expected.  On June 7, 1926, Gaudí was run over by a tram.  It was said that in his later years, he let his appearance go, and cab drivers refused to pick him up, fearing that he couldn’t pay the fare.  He was eventually taken to a pauper’s hospital, and wasn’t recognized until a day later when his friends found him in hopes of moving him to a better hospital.  He refused, saying, “I belong here among the poor.”  He died three days later on June 10, 1926, when half of Barcelona mourned the loss of their architect. He was buried within his creation, near the current museum that lies underneath the church. 

 

There is no doubt that Antoni Gaudí, also known as “God’s Architect”, will be remembered throughout history for pushing the limits of structural design where no architect had gone before.  He brought together perfect synchronization to represent the history of Christ, and against all odds. Beating poor health and poor grades in school, he showed the world that he achieved his dream, and Barcelona is biting their nails to see that finished dream in 2030. When Gaudi received his deploma, Elies Rogent declared, "Qui sap si hem donat el diploma a un boig o a un geni: el temps ens ho dirà" ("Who knows if we have given this diploma to a nut or to a genius. Time will tell.")

 

Well it is late and mother is not pleased with me.  I just told her I was getting water but we both know that’s not true.  ¡Adios!