Unfinished Business
Barcelona's Sagrada familia has been a work in progress ... for 124
years.
Before
Salvador Dalí, there was Antoni Gaudí.
Spaniards both, they each were dedicated to the expression of
imagination through art, the surreal marriage of reality and
fantasy. And yet it is Gaudí, a before-his-time genius architect
and engineer, whose work goes on to this very day - literally - in
Barcelona.
Gaudí's unfinished masterpiece is the Sagrada Familia, a church
that has been worked on in three consecutive centuries. Today it is
only half complete, and it may take another 30 to 50 years to
finish Gaudí's vision of a massive monument to God that would hold
10,000 to 14,000 worshippers and include a nave designed with
treelike columns and 18 highly original towers topped with
intricate sculptures of Christian symbols.
More than a million and a half people visit the Sagrada Familia
every year. What they see is nothing less than magnificent.
I CHECK INTO my
Barcelona hotel, open the window, and there
is the Sagrada Familia, with its unique towers, ghostlike
draping-over spires, and construction cranes hundreds of feet
high. No question: It dominates Barcelona's cityscape and psyche.
My entry ticket says in six languages, "The fee is a contribution
for the construction," reminding me that I (like Dalí) am a patron
of this ongoing project, which was begun at a time when there were
no radios, televisions, paved roads, or computers. Gaudí wanted
the Sagrada Familia, which means "the Sacred Holy Family," to be
for the family of all humanity. It was originally started in 1882
as an expiatory church to make up for previous anticlerical
movements in
Spain, but after Gaudí was brought in a year later,
the project evolved into something much bigger in vision and in
size.
My guide, Teresa Farriols, starts the exploration with a
postcard-panoramic view of the Nativity facade, seen across the
park through blossoms and trees. Even at that distance, it looks
more like a mutating fantasy than a Gothic cathedral. I make out
four untraditional towers, their spires topped with bright-colored
filial art that uses the sky as a canvas, and a large green cypress
tree with white doves of peace and faithfulness. The closer we get,
the more fantastic and fascinating it all appears.
The Nativity facade is the only side that was completely overseen
by Gaudí before he died in 1926. It's his wildly imaginative and
carefully crafted tribute to God through religion and nature. Two
pillars stand tall between the doorways of Hope, Faith, and
Charity, their stories told through scriptural sculptures. The
seaward pillar rises from the stone back of a giant marine turtle,
and the leeward pillar rests on an equal-size land tortoise.
This side of the building (the east side), which has been called
the Bible in Stone, depicts the birth, childhood, and adolescence
of Jesus in three-dimensional tableaus. Sometimes the fourth
dimension of time shows through - the darker colors of age and
smog, and the lighter, younger colors that show repairs from damage
inflicted during the Spanish Civil War. Gaudí based the statues on
people he selected from the neighborhood and his staff. He cast his
forms in plaster, photographed them in front of multiple angled
mirrors to get all perspectives, and wired skeletal bones in
positions so the final carved stones would tell truths.
Among the biblical sculptures, I see morphing shapes that look like
lava flows of leaves, flowers, trees, stalactites, and stalagmites.
I am told there are 36 different kinds of birds in this facade, all
found in the pages of the Bible, all modeled from real specimens.
There are also the Milky Way, signs of the zodiac, and
theologians.
I stare up at the bold intricacy of the facade, looking for the
symbols and stories. As I start to walk away, I see what appear to
be golden statues of Mary and Joseph on the grounds. As I get
closer, though, I see that they are real people. Marcela Riqueiro
Carbia and Carlos Pulido were so inspired when they came from
Argentina nine years ago, they decided to add to the attraction by
painting themselves and posing, as still as stone. On sunny days,
they may see hundreds or thousands of people reacting to Gaudí's
creation, which UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site. "Sometimes
people's mouths just drop open when they see the whole thing, or
they point to an unexpected detail," Carbia and Pulido tell me.
WHEN GAUDÍ DIED unexpectedly in 1926, after being hit by a
streetcar on his daily walk to Catholic Mass, he left no mentored
successor, and work stopped for a while. He left many plans and
models, but he had been known to improvise as he worked. During his
life, Gaudí had been reviled and revered, and with his death, many
thought the Sagrada Familia should stay as it was: unfinished.
Despite many obstacles, work did resume. Then, in 1936, during the
Spanish Civil War, much of Gaudí's workshop was destroyed, and
people spent years trying to piece together the remnants of models.
There's a local story that says rats chewed a hole in a wall,
uncovering a hidden cache of Gaudí models, which are used today as
guides.
Work was halted again by World War II, and architects did not begin
on the western facade until 1954. They aimed to keep the "peeled,
as if made of bones" look that Gaudí wanted when designing this
facade in 1911, while he was enduring the pains of Malta fever. The
Nativity facade faces east, to reflect the rising sun, and the
Passion facade - the stone stories of Christ's Last Supper,
betrayal, crucifixion, and burial - faces west, to reflect the
setting sun. The sculptures here yield curves with flat and edged
surfaces, which create faces with a linear sorrow that evoke
sadness, as if the contours were ramps for the tears that come with
the history-changing story of betrayal, agony, and sacrifice. The
more angular, concave sculptures were created by Josep M.
Subirachs, who has lived in the church since 1987, devoting his own
style to Gaudí's Sagrada Familia. Subirachs, with his distinct
sculptural style, asks visitors to follow an S path as their eyes
look up the three levels of stone tableaus that portray pivotal
moments from the last two days of Christ's life.
Beneath it all are central double doors with more than 8,000
letters melted in bronze and scriptures from the Last Supper, not
in traditional Latin or national Spanish, but in Catalan, the local
language that Gaudí spoke and put in his works.
I look up and see Christ and his crown of thorns hanging from a
horizontal cross that is above him, not behind him, so it can be
better seen from the ground. Teresa, my guide, says this is the
only naked crucifixion sculpture in the world, and that for many
weeks she couldn't take tours through because of the throngs of
protesters.
The gestalt and the details of this whole facade take time - as
well as binoculars - to absorb. There's even a cryptogram number
puzzle that Subirachs added to get attention: There are 310 ways it
can add up to 33, the age of Jesus when he died. One of the figures
above is homage to Gaudí himself at age 60. The Roman guards
depicted have Darth Vader-like masks that are nods to the creative
chimneys that Gaudí created on the rooftops of residences he
designed when he wasn't working on the Sagrada Familia.
It is a feast for the eyes, and I still haven't been inside
yet.
INSIDE IS A construction zone, where workers speak in
Catalan, as Gaudí did. The noise can be thunderous, and there are
strange smells and dust. There still is no ceiling in most places,
so the weather changes the lighting and the temperature
continually. It's exciting to be in the huge workshop of people
trying to finish the vision of a man who died 80 years ago, a man
who tried to change the spaces and impact of architecture.
I am transfixed by a Gaudí-designed stained-glass window that
creates a prism-like effect of traveling shards of colored light.
In a different corner, I ask one of the model makers, Albert
Portoles, what it is like to work on a world masterpiece. In
Catalan, he says, "You wonder if it will last like the pyramids,"
then he shrugs poignantly, his expression enigmatic. "But you don't
know - man creates and he destroys," as the history of the building
itself shows. He has worked on the Sagrada Familia for over 20
years and takes pride in showing his children his work. His
partner, modeler Ignaci Badia, works in an open area where tourists
can watch him craft pieces from Gaudí's scale models.
I watch workers sand a large curved piece that will fit in the top
of a pillar far above our heads and be part of a branch of what I
call the sycamore pillars. Gaudí wanted the pillars holding up the
church's roof to feel like an organic forest. It was both an
artistic breakthrough and an engineering feat. At a time when there
were no computers to calculate stress loads, Gaudí found a way to
create vaulted ceilings without the flying buttresses associated
with Gothic cathedrals. "The tree near my workshop is my master,"
Gaudí said.
The tall trunks of the towers change colors in places since Gaudí
effectively used different stones in various sections, depending
on the weight-bearing abilities of the rock type. It creates both
an aesthetic resemblance to the light brown patches on ivory
sycamore trunks and a practical solution. Near the top, the pillars
literally branch out to support more ceiling. They are adorned with
broken golden ceramics, perhaps a celestial view of fall leaves. It
is a signature Gaudí decoration to use broken tiles put back
together with spaces in between, harking back to when he recycled
available materials in his earlier works, which can be seen
throughout Barcelona.
TO GET THE LOFTIEST overview of the Sagrada Familia and its
inspiring 360-degree views of Barcelona, I decide to head to the
highest point nonworkers are allowed: the towers.
When the first tower was completed in 1925, Gaudí enjoyed "how that
spear joins heaven and earth." Accounts say he intended 18 towers
of varying heights: 12 bell towers for the 12 apostles; four for
the evangelists; one to rise over a dome devoted to Mary; and
ultimately, the central spire dedicated to Jesus, intended as the
tallest religious tower in the world, at 558 feet.
I climb the steeply spiraling stairs up 342 steps in a circular
passageway that is less than two feet wide in places. Hoofing up
the vertical helix, the turns of the tower give me a chance to
contemplate the twists of Gaudí's imagination. There are narrow
windows and little parapet balconies to create my own
juxtapositions of his wide-ranging art. I can see details up close
- like a six-foot conch seashell and a snail, which are his
contemporary gargoyles. I can also read phrases like
Sursam
corda ("Lift up your hearts"), brightly colored saints' names,
and key concepts like
Sacrificia in large red letters. It
reminds me that Gaudí worked on the Sagrada Familia for 43 years of
his life, living monastically the last 12 years, dedicated solely
to this monument.
In a test of faith for any claustrophobic, I must climb single
file, and every person up the line who pauses to pose for his or
her perfect picture creates a stop. As I wait, I think about how
Gaudí had to build in stops and starts because of politics, his
other amazing projects, and because of the commitment that this
"cathedral for the poor" would be funded only through "alms and
donations."
"The top" is a short walkway between towers, with people going up
one tower and down the other. It feels like I am in a transitional
aerial epicenter with gorgeous views of Barcelona's bold
architecture, embracing mountains and port, and the church all
around and below me. It's hard to imagine that when the Sagrada
Familia broke ground, it was on land outside the city walls, in a
new district called the Eixemplo. Gaudí intended the towering
building to be "a lighthouse, the first thing sailors see when
coming into port." Now, even without all the lights inside that he
planned, it is a monument by which tourists can navigate the city.
And I wonder if Gaudí ever imagined that hundreds of thousands of
nonsailors would see the Mediterranean Sea from his towers.
The colored fruits also in view were designed by Japanese sculptor
Etsuro Sotoo to represent the seasons of the year. They are so
large and bright, I laugh with delight. They also represent "the
fruits of your labor, inspired by the Holy Spirit," and it seems
appropriate to see them from the ground, and then climb up high to
this little bridge in the sky that shares the view with other Gaudí
towers and aspiring construction cranes.
From here I can see parts of the Glory facade, which will have the
largest towers when finished and will portray joys, glories, and
divinity to complete the stone storytelling of Christ's life, but
also of the life and death of man. It will be the main entrance and
is mostly unfinished and draped when I visit. Unlike the other
sides of the Sagrada Familia, it no longer has the spacious land
offset as originally intended. Buildings were allowed to go up on
the valuable
real estate nearby, but my guide says the edifices I
see across the street will all come down, and residents and stores
will relocate when the time comes.
Throughout their stretch upward, the bell towers have slanted vents
for light, air, and sound. Gaudí wanted the whole city to "see the
light" and hear the music he loved. Our guide thinks the last thing
the builders will do for the church is to install 12 large organs
whose music will be piped up and out - and heard all over the
city.
Gaudí's forms and shapes, and plays with light and sound, tease the
imagination more as an unfinished project. Possibilities still
tower.
The current head architect, Jordi Bonet (whose father worked alongside Gaudí as his assistant), says the Sagrada Familia is just over 50 percent complete now. There are domes, vaults, towers, and aisles that future visitors can watch being built. He says he is often asked by worried people when the building will be done. Gaudí was often asked the same question almost a century earlier and replied, “My client is not in a hurry.” No answer could be more appropriate.