Architecture aims at eternity, they say. Gazing at the future, but never forgetting the past, Antoni Gaudí has left us with so much to see, touch and contemplate. His work, deeply intertwined with nature, religion and beauty, tells a story of inanimate matter coming to life. Simultaneously, it preaches humility and teaches aspiration. Barcelona, his atelier, exhibits Gaudí at his finest, allowing us to experience the very depths of the artist’s mind. Over there, Sagrada Família erects like the pièce de résistance of both Catalonia and its favourite architect. Here’s what you need to know before experiencing it first-hand.
1. Sagrada Família Is a Century Old, Yet Still Unfinished
O meu cliente não tem pressa!
The work on Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família commenced back in 1882, when the project was left in the arms of the Catalan master. After 44 years, Gaudí was taking his last breaths, yet the basilica was nowhere near done. When questioned about why the construction was taking so long, God’s Architect patiently explained that his client is not in a hurry.
And, although the final stages of construction begun in 2015, Sagrada Família still remains unfinished. It wasn’t the architect’s poor sense of time that has prolonged the construction for so long, but rather his ambition – in Gaudí’s mind, the project was finished long before it started, and the inheritors continue to follow his design. If everything goes as planned, Sagrada Família will finally be completed by the year 2032.
2. Antoni Gaudí Was a 3D Master Long Before 3D Software
The straight line belongs to men, the curved one to God.
As an acclaimed “marvel of technical perfection”, Sagrada Família is now the tallest religious building in the world. The construction, however, began with nothing but chains. It’s well known that Antoni Gaudí was not especially fond of drawing plans for his designs – instead, the artist preferred building 3D models as more accurate portrayals of his mind’s creations.
Furthermore, the architect’s unconventional passion for nature and its organic flows spurred Gaudí’s obsession with catenary arches early on, and encouraged him to make them a constructional theme for the building. The unique geometry of Sagrada Família was thus inspired by natural shapes and modeled with chains hanging upside down, with the actual model of the edifice reflecting in the mirror below. Gaudí’s hanging chain models can now be seen on site.
3. The Marvellous Edifice Is a Sui Generis of the Church Architecture
Originality consists of returning to the origin.
Inspired by nature and religion and supported by the artist’s avant-garde mind, the work of Antoni Gaudí is vastly eclectic. In terms of breaking existing moulds, however, Sagrada Família is Gaudí’s tour de force. There isn’t a period, movement or influence in the history of architecture that can be found alone in this gigantic piece of syncretism – respecting the paragons, but greatly surpassing them as well, the architect made Sagrada Família a truly unique piece of artwork. As a result, it’s a fusion of complex engineering and profound sculpturing, a deeply religious piece influenced by Spanish Late Gothic architecture and a brainchild of Modernism.
4. Initially a Church and Formerly a Cathedral, Sagrada Família Is, In Fact, a Basilica
The creation continues incessantly through the media of man.
If in doubt about what kind of a building Sagrada Família actually is, it’s pretty unlikely that anyone could answer your question with utmost certainty. Considered a basilica, Gaudí’s masterpiece was actually devised as a cathedral-size construction, and inspired by massive cathedrals of Spanish church architecture. Be that as it may, Sagrada Família can hardly be described with existing terms of architectural design. A basilica or a cathedral, one thing is for certain – it’s one of the most original individual artistic interpretations of Catholicism in the world.
5. Even the Tiniest Of Details Is a Symbol
Those who look for the laws of Nature as a support for their new works collaborate with the creator.
While masterminding his initial plans for Sagrada Família, Gaudí envisioned an edifice dedicated to God, but built by men. And since no man’s building should overshadow a creation of God, he made his church exactly one meter lower than Barcelona’s Montjuïc hill. Fighting long and hard to express his belief through modernistic work, the architect finally found a project worthy of his piety.
As a consequence, every single constructional element, as well as every tiny detail of Sagrada Família has a religious meaning of its own, referencing the infinity of spirit in its unique way. While a turtle statue represents the perpetuity of time, a chameleon at the base of the column suggests eternal transformation.
Twelve spires are dedicated to the Apostles, four additional ones to the Evangelists and the two of the odd ones – one being the shortest and the other the highest of the spires – symbolise Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, respectively, with the Tower of the Saviour erecting from the middle. The cross topping the tower, as a principal symbol of devotion, was devised as a 170 metre high structure.
6. Sagrada Família Counts Three Facades, Each Depicting the Life, Sacrifice and Consecration of Jesus Christ
In the Sagrada Família, everything is providential.
Much like constructional elements taken individually, the three façades of Sagrada Família – the Nativity façade, the Passion façade and the Glory façade – depict the life, sacrifice and consecration of Jesus Christ.
As a reference to the birth of Christ, and the tree Christian virtues that Jesus’ ways represent – Charity, Hope and Faith – the Nativity façade is a symbol of life itself. Accordingly, the façade is set to the East, where it welcomes the rising sun. Placed on the top of the Charity hallway, The Tree of Life – a cypress with doves – symbolises purity. Above, Christ’s genealogy climaxes in the fantastic presentation of The Birth of Jesus. So far, the Nativity façade is the only one of the three frontispieces that’s been completely finished.
Symbolising the crucifixion torments of the Lamb of God and representing the Passion of Christ, the Passion façade faces the setting sun. Bizarre and mesmerizing, the façade is a reflection of one of Gaudí’s artistic obsessions – skeletons – and is therefore more dramatic than the Nativity façade. To achieve such startling effects, the architect played with light, used the chiaroscuro technique and opted for straight, strict-looking columns.
With a little help from Josep Maria Subirachs i Sitjar, a Spanish sculptor and painter, Gaudí’s façade finishes with sculptural depictions of the Stations of the Cross, with The Last Supper, the Resurrection and the Ascension enveloping the presentation. Opposed to the Nativity façade’s symbolism of life, the Passion façade represents the sins of men.
While unfinished, the Glory façade is still equally as magnificent as the other two. As Gaudí envisioned it, this frontispiece depicts scenes from the Final Judgement, Hell and Purgatory. Symbolic-wise, the façade will be the most elaborate one, with the Seven Deadly Sins at the foothill and Seven Heavenly Virtues at the top to praise the Celestial Glory of Christ.
7. The Passion Façade Hides a Mystery
But man does not create… he discovers.
As another symbol of Sagrada Família, and a contribution of Josep Maria Subirachs i Sitjar, the Passion façade’s cryptogram continues to puzzle both believers and agnostics. Subirachs’ square reveals sixteen numbers and provokes one to calculate up to 310 different combinations, while adding up the number 33 in the process, as the number of Jesus Christ’s age. When red cryptographically, the square includes the word INRI – the initials that Pontius Pilate had written over Christ’s head on the cross – which is yet another reference to the crucifixion torments of Jesus Christ.
8. The Allegorical Building Represents Elevation towards God
Nothing is art if it does not come from nature.
One meter below Montjuïc hill, the tallest religious building in the world is by itself an allegorical elevation towards God. On the inside, Gaudí’s long-repressed Catholicism meets the architect’s first and eternal love – nature. Silent and tree-like, Sagrada Família’s columns branch upward to support the ceiling, all stellar and illuminated. Not believing in artificially flat surfaces, Gaudí made the apse three-dimensional, with columns providing the intimacy, silence and depth of the spiritual forest. Mottled with green, blue, yellow and red hues, the windows of Sagrada Família, designed by Joan Vila Grau, open the forest-like structure toward natural light, illuminating the cross-shaped apse. With the circling sun changing the spectre, Sagrada Família is an earthly piece of divinity.
9. Gaudí Was Buried in One of Sagrada Família Chapels
Tomorrow we will do beautiful things.
During the last years of his life, Sagrada Família was home to Antoni Gaudí, and after being lethally wounded by a tram, the architect was buried on the site of his greatest achievement. Gaudí’s tomb is now located in the chapel dedicated to the El Carmen Virgin on the underground level of the basilica, surrounded by four other chapels, all raised to honour different religious figures.
10. Not Everyone Was Enthralled By Its Brilliance
Artists do not need monuments erected for them because their works are their monuments.
Upon seeing Sagrada Família for the first time, George Orwell was certain that it was “one of the most hideous buildings in the world”. Much to our surprise, he wasn’t the only one – same as other Gaudí’s works, the basilica has been subject to loud esthetical disputes for centuries. Confronting the unbelievers, Louis Sullivan, the father of American modernism, experienced it as a spirit symbolised in stone. Ultimately, Antoni Gaudí was one of the greatest storytellers among architects, and with his biggest work still unfinished, the tale of Sagrada Família remains open for interpretations.
Be it bewilderment and indecision or admiration and worship, the sentiment that Sagrada Família inflames can’t be described, but rather needs to be experienced first-hand, with the smell of the constructional dust in the nostrils and the feelings of exaltation deep down in your core.