23) Gaudi's Sagrada Familia

When I reflect on why I travel, it's because of history - past history and the history I'm making while I travel.

       From the model

     Nature, Gaudi thought, was Gods bible, not the book written by men.

Despite the sight and noise of construction work, I did have a spiritual moment when I looked up and saw a white haze over a very high white window. The Sagrada Familia can elicit the shock of recognition. 

Gaudi was an architect not a sculptor and he had to give instructions and have models made for the artists to work from.

Gaudi was inclusive of the saints from other faiths. He had a universal approach to this cathedral. He was a mystic rather than a religious person.

St George in bronze

This is a 'stone bible' with every detail having spiritual significance.

  Solve the numeric puzzle (33 Jesus' age)

Jesus' nakedness caused a stir.

The final words on the cathedral will be Jesus Christ King of the Jews.

From the Unesco World Heritage Centre website:

"The works of Antoni Gaudí represent a series of outstanding examples of the building typology in the architecture of the early 20th century, residential as well as public, to the development of which he made a significant and creative contribution. It is, furthermore, an outstanding and well-preserved example of the ideal garden cities dreamed of by the urbanists of the end of the 19th century. It exhibits an important interchange of values closely associated with the cultural and artistic currents of his time, as represented in El Modernisme of Catalonia. It anticipated and influenced many of the forms and techniques that were relevant to the development of modern construction in the 20th century.

Gaudí was born in 1852 in Reus, a small town south of Barcelona, and he died in a street accident in 1926. The intellectual context towards the end of the 19th century in Catalonia was marked by Modernisme, a movement that extended from around 1880 to the First World War, parallel to currents such as Naturalism, Arts and Crafts, and Art Nouveau. It was motivated by return to traditions as an expression of national identity, as well as by the introduction of modern techniques and materials. Modernisme differed from the other movements by becoming important for popular cultural identity. Gaudí's work represents the genius of the architect, expressing particular spatial qualities and plasticity in the undulating lines and harmonies of colours and materials in architectural surfaces and sculpted features.

His main undertaking is the church of Sagrada Familia, based on the Latin cross. The work had been started by architect Francesc de P. del Villar in 1882 in Gothic revival style. In 1883 Gaudì made fundamental changes to the first project and continued the work until his death. The crypt was built in 1884-89 and the Nativity facade finished in 1905. The four fantastic bell towers were finished in 1925-30. The transept elevation of the Passion was started in 1960, and construction of the church still continues."

whc.unesco.org