A return visit this summer to Barcelona, and its iconic Sagrada Familia basilica was a time of surprises to me. For a start, the interior, which had only been open for hardhat construction tours on a previous visit, was now virtually complete and amazing.
But the big surprise: construction on the interior, which had been moving at a slow pace in previous years, with cranes and towers intermixed, had picked up pace sharply, and begun to alter the familiar image I (and likely many others) have carried of the building. The few tall towers that had been completed gave the building a verticality that seemed one of its main characteristics.
Now, however, construction was moving full-speed ahead on more towers, mostly above the center of the church, giving it a much blockier and denser form. When finished, there will be eighteen towers: One for Mary, one for Jesus, one each for the four evangelists and the twelve apostles. The Jesus tower is meant to make Sagrada Familia the world’s tallest church at 172 metres.
Two sacristies, long part of the plan but unbuilt, have appeared at corners of the building, and two more are to come.
Color differences between newly-installed and long-aged stone show where work has been happening.
But new construction is not the only shape-shifting happening at Sagrada Familia. Large areas of facade decoration on the church’s facades show strong differences of style as you walk around the building. Some results from Gaudi’s intent to show differences through the themes of the facades.
The Nativity facade, above, the first to be finished and most precisely designed by Gaudi, is full of patterns of nature, life and exuberance, reflecting joy at Jesus’ birth.
The Passion facade, intended by Gaudi to focus on Jesus’ death and resurrection reflects a darker spirit. Working from a general plan of Gaudi’s, the sculptures by Josep Maria Subirachs feature sharp and foreboding angles and hidden dangers.
Certainly there is a sense of despair rather than joy in the Passion facade’s figures.
The third major facade, Bliss, is waiting to be built; we’ll have to return to see how that turns out; the builders still home to be finished by 2026, the centennial anniversary of Gaudi’s death.
But even Gaudi, who worked more from models and revised models than from architectural drawings, wouldn’t be able to answer that question: the work evolved as he and others worked on it.
In his own words:
It is not a disappointment that I will not be able to finish the Temple. I will grow old, but others will come after me. This will make it even more grandiose.”
I know the personal taste of the architects that follow me will influence the works but that doesn’t bother me. I think the Temple will benefit from it. Great temples have never been the work of just one architect.”
