The first time Connie saw the Sagrada Familia was when she and her friend Kris were bumming around Europe in 1968. At that time, the northeast façade (The Nativity Façade) and some of the transept were all of the above ground construction completed. When we toured it in ’02, the transept and apse were enclosed, some more of the smaller towers were complete and the frame of the southwest façade (The Passion Façade) was near completion. The forest theme of the interior was a little overdone, however, there being a forest of scaffolding throughout. Even so, it was obvious we were standing in a special place.
Though still years from completion, the church was consecrated by the pope in 2010. When it is completed, ownership shifts from the City of Barcelona to the Catholic Church. The entire southeast façade (The Glory Façade), with its great bronze doors to become the main entrance and four more of the great towers has yet to be built. The two southern chapels have to be built and the cloisters on that end of the church enclosed. And finally, the greatest of the towers need to be completed.
But that’s all outside. Once inside, Gaudi’s dream is all but realized. I’m not capable of doing its artistry justice – you’ll have to see it yourselves. I’ll just note a few things. The interior is at once familiar and unlike anything else. All the traditional cathedral features are there and yet there’s nothing traditional about them. For example, the great columns that run through the nave and transept branch and then branch again before coming in contact with the roof. By doing so, more of the roof and towers loads are transferred to the columns eliminating the need for buttressing the exterior walls. And the foliage features that form the forest canopy were designed to enhance the acoustics of the huge space made of stone, metal and glass. The use of sunlight is also cool. The ample windows on the sunrise side are in varying shades of reds and yellows to warm the day. On the opposite side, the colors are blue and green to cool the afternoon’s heat. But coolest is that from bottom to top the shades go from darker to lighter causing the observer to lift her eyes to heaven. And, finally, in the museum below, we saw an incredible web of string and tiny little sand bags. This turns out to be a way to reverse engineer the shapes of arches based on their widths and loads (the little sand bags). If he did not devise the system himself, Gaudi was a major contributor to its development.
Gaudi began work on the church in 1888 and was killed in a trolley accident in 1926 with little of the above ground work completed.