Temple
De La Sagrada Família
In
Barcelona ~ by Shirleyann Costigan
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came to Barcelona to see Gaudi's masterpiece, the Temple de la Sagrada
Família.
However, when I discovered that six of my travel group wanted to see Parc
Guëll I decided to visit the Parc with them before going my separate
way. At the Tourist Office located in the Plaça de Catalunya it
is possible to purchase a bus pass that offers two different sightseeing
routes around the city, both on the same pass. Passengers can get off at
any stop and catch the next red or blue bus that comes by every 20 minutes
or so, but because the stop-and-go ride to the Parc would take 45 minutes,
we opted to take the Metro directly to Parc Guëll station. That was
a mistake.
Parc Guëll
station is a good three-fourths of a mile from the Parc, two long blocks
of which go straight up a steep hill. We later learned that the Gaudí
Museum Station is much closer to the Parc although it is still at the bottom
of the hill, leaving a hefty climb. Parc Guëll is named for Count
Eusebi Guëll, the textile manufacturer who in the late 19th Century
encouraged and financially supported Gaudí’s imaginative genius.
The Parc, which Gaudí originally intended as a residential colony,
covers 15 acres spread over the crest of a hill. Many of its surprising
attractions are tucked away in hidden corners or located on the heights
of the hill. My legs were already wobbling as I entered the gate so I paused
to prioritize my interests and minimize my steps. The day after all was
just beginning.
My first reaction
as I passed between two fanciful gatehouses topped with twisted tiled roofs
was sheer disbelief. “My God,” I muttered to a perfect stranger, “We’re
in Munchkin Land.” Groups of school children paraded around the entrance
and, although their uniforms bore no resemblance to the curly-toed shoes
and petal hats of Oz, their excited chatter supported the illusion and
made me smile. The entrance opens on to a monumental stairway that leads
into Gaudí’s Hypostyle chamber, a forest of fluted pillars that
support the Plaça del Parc Guëll directly above it. The chamber
was to be a marketplace for the live-in colony that never materialized.
One has to suspect, however, that the chamber’s 86 columns, intricate mosaics,
and fantastic sculptural details were fashioned solely to give delight.
Paths at either side of the central staircase provide alternate routes
up to the Plaça. I took the left path that offered a good view of
another of Gaudí’s architectural surprises: the Portico Gallery
that runs along the hillside. |
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| The Parc
Guëll stands on a hill above Barcelona.The Parc is made up of a series
of buildings set in decorative landscaping. The Parc was built between
1900 and 1914. |
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The Gallery’s
twisted, dun-colored columns slanting inward from their raw-earth roots
are both grotesque and enchanting. Don’t ask me how Gaudí managed
it. That was his genius. The purpose of the Plaça on the second
level is plain enough: to sit, rest and enjoy a panoramic view of Barcelona.
That’s what I did for about twenty minutes, happily watching the families
and groups of school children come and go. The Gaudí Museum and
Count Eusebi’s house located in the upper regions of the Parc are, as I
was later informed, more than worth the climb, but from my seat on the
spectacular serpentine bench that curves around the front half of the Plaça,
I could see in the distance La Sagrada Família towering over the
city. That’s where I wanted to be.
And, with some
reluctance, knowing I would not return, I made a quick stop at the gift
shop then exited Parc Guëll and hailed a cab. The cab took me through
the Eixample District of the city where many of the Modernisme buildings
are located, making the ride a mini-tour in itself. Truth is, nearly every
boulevard in Barcelona offers at least one breathtaking example of exquisite
architecture, and I regretted not taking the time I had originally planned
to explore these unique buildings. There wasn’t much time for regrets,
however, for within minutes my cab reached its destination. I distractedly
paid the cabbie as I stepped from the cab, my eyes already focused on the
eight bell towers rising from the square. Their height is breathtaking,
oddly defiant, almost forbidding in their dominance over the city that
bustles about its feet. Gazing at the Temple from across the street, I
noted that it looked just like its pictures, only much, much bigger. Other
than that, I felt nothing. This, for me, is not an unusual reaction to
grandiosity.
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| The Sagrada
Familia is Antoni Gaudi's Church. Over a million people a year come to
the church to visit. |
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Some
places stand so far outside ordinary experience I hardly know how to feel
in their presence. Even awe challenges my limited capacity for the unfamiliar,
but to feel nothing at all was to feel cheated. I came not only to see,
but also to experience this cathedral. I wanted it to speak to me as only
it could. But the whole of it was too loud. I needed to explore its parts,
to find within this pile of pillars at least one resonant detail that would
speak to my heart and connect me to its larger context.
A broad stroke
description of the cathedral is relatively simple. It’s designed in the
form of a Latin cross. A cloister surrounds the building linking three
great facades, each of which celebrates an event in the life of Christ:
the Nativity on the east side, the Passion on the west side, and the Glory
on the south side. The Glory Façade is still under construction.
The most familiar features of the present structure are the eight bell
towers rising 98 to 112 meters over the east and west facades. Eventually,
four more bell towers will rise over the Glory Façade, and six even
taller domes will crown the still to be completed transept and the apse.
Gaudí’s drawings and models leave no doubt as to the cathedral’s
stunning effect once it is completed, but the existing structure is arresting
enough. Sheer curiosity, if nothing more, will draw you into it.
Happily, the
ticket line was short when I arrived. Within minutes I was climbing the
steps to the Passion Façade. Without some foreknowledge of what
to expect, the Passion Façade can be an unexpected, some say disquieting,
surprise. Completed about 64 years after Gaudí’s death in 1926,
the Facade is an aggressively modern interpretation of Gaudí’s original
vision. The structure is a roofed portal sheltering sculptures depicting
scenes from the Passion. The architecture is stern, very unlike Gaudí’s
sympathetic style. The sculptures are brutally angular and sharp. Except
for the figure of Christ on the Column, which is truly poignant, the remaining
figures shun sentimentality or any tender emotion that ultimately minimizes
Christ’s ordeal. Gaudí expressed his original intent for the Passion
Façade thusly. “I am ready to sacrifice the building itself, to
smash vaults and cut columns in order to give an idea of the cruelty of
sacrifice.” Yet, characteristically, Gaudí’s drawings of the Façade
do not reflect cruelty. |
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His columns,
rising tree-like to support the Portico, resemble the organic columns of
the Portico Gallery in Parc Guëll, and are strangely inviting. His
balustrade, which crowns the Portico, resembles a collection of dinosaur
bones supporting a leafy tiara. The sculptures within are vague. The entire
effect is rather bizarre, but the idea of cruel sacrifice is not evident.
The existing façade more accurately reflects Gaudí’s intent
rather than his drawings. The portico columns thrust rigidly upward, supporting
an unfinished roof that is, for now, stingy and severe. The balustrade
is missing altogether. The sculptures, created in the late 1980s by Josep
Maria Subrachs, are cold and cruel. In short, the Passion Façade
is hard to love.
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first impulse was to rush on by, the same way I want to rush through Good
Friday to reach Easter Sunday, but the stark, stone figures arrested my
attention. Their stilted expressions were a reminder of how perpetrators
and victims of extreme cruelty will suppress their emotions to survive.
The figures’ stern rigidity also chided the state of my own personal faith:
bereft of wonder, closed to enlightenment, open to unbelief. I did not
want to be reminded of this. I resented it, but upon reflection it was
an appropriate approach into the Cathedral, sort of like climbing numerous
stone steps on my knees. Mea culpa. Then I passed through the portal. I
knew before entering the Cathedral that its impressive exterior surrounds
a shell in which construction is in progress. I must say, however, I was
stunned by the degree of industry inside: steel girders stretch upward
toward open sky, scaffolding high and scaffolding low, ladders, ramps,
pulleys, dust, debris, all amid the hollow racket of sawing and hammering
to beat the devil. This place is neither a church nor tourist haven. It
is a hard-hat construction area where non-laborers are shoved to the side,
merely tolerated, while the serious work of building the world’s most quixotic
modern cathedral proceeds apace. A covered walkway outside the cordoned
area provides a platform from which to watch the works while being protected
from flying sparks and falling debris. No friendly foreman stops by to
give a clue about what is going on. Observers have to figure that out for
themselves. There are, tacked to the posts along the walkway, a series
of schematics that show some of architectural devices used in the overall
plan. |
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| Antoni
Gaudi died tragically in 1926 when a tram car accidently killed him as
he was headed to vespers. |
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One I recognized.
During a dinner discussion the night before, a member of the tour group
gave insights into the design of the Cathedral. He smoothed out a paper
napkin on which he drew ten or twelve strings of varying lengths, each
string pulled down at its center by a weight to form an acute angle. The
result was a body of overlapping angles hanging at different levels. He
turned the napkin upside-down and voila! There was a simplified silhouette
of Gaudí’s Temple. “No math,” he explained. “Gaudí didn’t
use any math in his early designs, just strings and weights.” Well, whatever.
Certainly, in their execution, Gaudí’s designs require mathematics
enough to give Buckminster Fuller a migraine. The schematics on display
are replete with esoteric measurements and geometric modellings which involve
hyperbolic paraboloids, helicoids, hyperboloids, and conoids, that (according
to the tour brochure) provide the “structural and plastic possibilities
. . . and all the beauty Gaudi had observed in nature.” Fortunately, the
layperson doesn’t need to understand any of this to appreciate the construction
in progress. And progress is being made. Tall fluted pillars, with armatures
jutting tree-like from ovoid capitals within the columns, support the perimeters
of the vaulted ceiling. Wall niches, statues, and decorative details line
the walls. The Portal of the Rosary, to the right of the entrance, is detailed
and beautiful. There actually is a great deal to see and admire, but the
overall experience is one of a work in progress; a strangely exciting experience
that, for me, demystified the mighty cathedral. Here, in this cluttered
workplace, the spirit waits while human hands build a venue worthy of God.
Daylight, streaming through the Portal of the Nativity, lured me back outside
to view the East Facade. A multitude of tourists crowded the viewing platform,
all eyes looking up, fingers pointing, cameras clicking. I felt my anticipation
mount even before I, too, gazed up at what many consider Gaudí’s
masterpiece.
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Like most
tourists, this was what I had really come to see: angels and kings, manger
and star, Joseph and Mary at their most gracious, the Christ Child, Christmas!
Work began on the Nativity Façade in 1892 and was completed in 1930,
four years after Gaudi died. The architect wanted the Façade completed
within his own generation even though it meant putting off construction
on other parts of the structure. In effect, the completed Façade
was a hook for drawing in the support needed to complete the entire Cathedral,
and it is this Façade that most clearly celebrates Gaudí’s
visual genius. No single word can describe it. It is at once massive and
delicate, exciting and serene, virginal and fecund; the sculpted figures
are finely wrought. And there is so much of it: on and on, up and up; every
inch of it adorned with intricate details. Gaudí’s predilection
for storybook coziness, so evident at Parc Guëll, predominates over
all. Concrete icicles, signifying winter, drip across the face of the Facade
like melted frosting on a gingerbread house. Familiar tableaus portraying
the Holy Family, saints, shepherds, and kings nestle within sculpted grottoes
like peek-a-boo scenes within decorated sugar eggs. Flowers, fruits, and
birds abound, while angels trumpet the good tidings: Come see such wonders
to behold!
As my eyes
devoured these delights, my heart returned to my childhood religion, thirsting
for its comfort and joy. Nostalgia, for a brief moment, overwhelmed me,
and I became, not a pilgrim, as I had fancied myself, but a prodigal daughter
too long away. Gaudí’s cathedral is indeed incomplete, but not I
think, disappointingly so. True, the Passion Façade is a disappointment
to many, mainly because its modernity goes far beyond Modernisme. Some
people have concerns that the remaining work on Cathedral’s interior and
the Glory Façade will, in the end, betray Gaudí’s vision.
And yet the work goes on, possibly because people recognize that at whatever
stage of completion the Cathedral is greater than its parts; that La Sagrada
Família is an emerging act of worship. No one knows how much longer
the construction will take. |
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No one knows
how much it will eventually cost. No one knows if the devotion of future
generations will justify the enormous investment. Yet, in spite of these
unknowns, construction continues. In the end, La Sagrada Família
is simply a matter of faith.
To contact
Shirleyann Click Here.
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