More important, in the nearly hundred and fifty years it has taken for the church to assume its final form, Gaudí’s once revolutionary aesthetic no longer looks futuristic. Early critics of the Sagrada Família accused Gaudí of being too over the top, but his commitment to visual abundance has become a universal aspect of pop culture—think of the ornate C.G.I. cityscapes in “Black Panther” or the “Star Wars” films.
I was never into architecture and am not a religious person but visiting the Sagrada Familia was profound. I came out a slightly different man than one who walked into it just half an hour before. No CGI hack comes close.
I'm Christian, so slightly different context going in, but I also found it profound. I've been to other churches and cathedrals (including the Vatican!) and they feel sterile by comparison. Stepping inside to the sight of a towering forest of stone and dazzling light is truly breathtaking. It made me genuinely emotional.
It's nothing like I've ever seen before so I'm surprised by the comments at the end of the article that make it seem like its originality has waned over the years. You can feel the conviction and passion that have been poured into it for over a century.
Same here. It was an amazing experience. I was lucky on my visit day and time that it was sunny and the sun was setting down which made spectacles of light show inside. I just stood in the middle for half an hour amazed.
I've been twice, and unfortunately it was cloudy on my second trip.
The difference light quality makes to the experience is remarkable, and I implore anyone that visits to ensure you go at the right times on a clear sunny day.
You may think you've seen well lit stained glass before, but it's like freaking lazer beams of thick light penetrating the environment to the point where it doesn't seem natural.
I’m doing a nerdy Catholic project that calls for attending Mass at churches all over Chicago (https://www.dahosek.com/category/catholic-nerd-pilgrimage/) and one recent church had an east-facing wall that was entirely stained glass that was quite a dramatic effect during a morning Mass. The right combination of architecture, geography and weather can do some amazing things.
I had a similar experience. The "Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus" written in stone was not an aspiration or a motto for me when I visited, it was a statement of fact.
When the commission is to create the most impressive structure possible, anything less would be a failure. That is just how the Catholic church rolls. See most European art and culture for the last 1500 years for details.
Not sure “celebrities” were such a thing as they are today. 7 centuries was before the reformation and things were pretty austere. Surely nobles celebrated things and there were favored artisans but celebrated as crassly as we do today in such abundance. I don’t think the media existed to allow that to take place.
Eh, they certainly weren't celebrities in the same way, that would only be possible with modern broadcast media. But people like the pope, kings, and dukes would be pretty close. I would expect the average medieval peasant would know who the pope (or popes, depending on the date) were, and at the least who their king was, as well as the relevant nobles for their village. And I wouldn't be surprised if they knew who the neighboring kings and nobles were. A peasant from the Iberian peninsula might not know who the king of Poland was, but they would likely know who the French king was and likely who was emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
And medieval people definitely built monuments to themselves. A great example is Battle Abbey [0]. The official reason it was built was as penance for William the conqueror killing so many English, but there is definitely a strong case to be made that building such a grand abbey was in 0art to signify the new Norman rule and to remind people of who was in charge. They weren't venerating the architect, but it was very clear to everyone who paid for the abbey and William remained very much linked to the structure. That would have been one of the most impressive buildings for a very large area, even it's ruins remain impressive nearly a millennium later. It's a religious building, but it was even at the time very much linked to a secular ruler (inasmuch as the rulers of the time were secular).
> On a perfect September afternoon, I walked alone to find the church.
> One moment, only trees. The next, La Sagrada Familia.
> To stand there, before the century of brilliance and determination that combined to create this mass of stone and glass, on the edge between nature and society, and see, and sense that I too am seen, was one of the great privileges of my life.
You have to be lucky to get a sunny day though. Of course it's Barcelona so that's pretty likely. But on a sunny day the colours are much deeper. The best lighting you get near the end of the day when the sun is low and shines the colours right across the whole church. It's an amazing kaleidoscope.
I just got back from a family vacation there. I was tired that day, it was hot and crowded, and I started thinking, "I wonder if this will be worth it."
I found myself astounded, struck speechless, and moved to tears. I was in awe.
Gaudi is someone we software engineers should revere. He made things precisely and powerfully functional while also making them beautiful.
Do not miss seeing Sagrada Familia if you ever get the chance.
Visited this a few months ago, somehow having never heard of it as an American (in the way that I learned about Notre Dame and St. Peter’s and Westminster Abbey) and it surpassed the hype far more than any European famous attraction I’ve ever been to.
I first glimpsed it while doing a touristy bike tour my first day in Barcelona and it’s hard to convey how surreal it is, like a video game’s final level glitching into its tutorial stage.
Not the person you’re replying to, but I’m sure they mean something like, imagine the tutorial level in a normal town, but the boss’s final lair from the Catholic moon has glitched into the middle of the tutorial town.
No you can just book a ticket like with all the others. Always buy a ticket online. Otherwise you'll be stuck in a queue. The Sagrada stopped doing on the spot visits because the queue was getting too long and Battló did as well. Only at la pedrera (or casa Milà as it's really called) can you still buy a ticket on site. But I wouldn't. You're just wasting your time waiting while all the prebooks go ahead of you.
Battló is the best one for me by far. I love the organic shapes and the light well and the soft wood etc. Wow
Strongly recommend Casa Batllo - it's magnificent. It pulls off this trick of being slightly surreal, but yet completely cozy. There's not a single inch of it that isn't unique and interesting to look at, and yet far from being visually overwhelming, it's immensely restful. I'd move into it tomorrow.
All that said, if they still have the LED-installation at the exit - and if you're like me, and a little sensitive to visual stimuli - avoid it at all costs. It is 360° (or more? I think it's the floor and ceiling, too) of flashing lights and sound, which reduced me to a catatonic state, squatting in the corner with my eyes tight shut and my hands pressed over my ears. It was almost, but not quite (which says something for how good the house itself is), enough to ruin the experience.
The amazing thing with this church and Barcelona is not the genius of Gaudi.
It's that the city of Barcelona happily let him build his gloriously insane buildings all across town, and on top of that get free reign over the ginormous cathedral project!
Having lived in San Francisco, it seems absolutely unreal...
Visited Barcelona a decade ago to see this. It's awesome. I often think calling it "kitsch" is some sort of unfortunate linguistic quirk because Antonio Gaudi's name evokes "gaudy."
The thing is a celebration of creation, inventiveness, and natural beauty. Maybe even playfulness - though being a catholic building there's some requisite "death" mixed in: I guess the full spectrum of life is lurking in there.
An element of Gaudi's work I didn't appreciate until I was in Barcelona is the usage of biological structures in his architecture. You can see somewhat in the image looking at the ceiling, but the columns really do evoke the sense of being in a forest of pure white, towering trees with the ceiling as its canopy.
I'd echo everyone else on how awe-inspiring this building is. One thing that's particularly interesting is that, while the outside is extremely cluttered and ornate, the inside is almost spare by comparison, and achieves a level of immersive awe that I've never experienced before.
In that sense, the building is almost too successful - a church is meant to glorify God, but there's no disentangling the Sagrada from Gaudi. You cannot stand in the building and not feel a sense of awe for the mind that created this, and the building is far, far too famous to ever be a servicing church. It was such an interesting contradiction of an achievement - it's such an incredible artistic accomplishment and so successful in its intent to inspire and as an act of devotion that you just cannot look past the finger to see the moon. The artist eclipses the subject.
(As an aside, Orwell makes mention of the Sagrada Familia in Homage to Catalonia, and it's an incredible paragraph: "For the first time since I had been in Barcelona I went to have a look at the cathedral – a modern cathedral, and one of the most hideous buildings in the world... Unlike most of the churches in Barcelona it was not damaged during the revolution – it was spared because of its ‘artistic value’, people said. I think the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up when they had the chance.")
FYI it isn’t a cathedral. A cathedral is not a type of building, but the seat of the bishop (“cathedra” meaning “seat”). It is a common misconception that a cathedral is a grand church, since many cathedrals are, in fact, grand. Check out the Co-Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Juneau, Alaska to see a modest example.
Sagrada Família is, however, a basilica which is a title of honor bestowed on churches by the pope.
I visited last month and it is incredibly stunning to see in person. The amazing amount of detail on the facade carvings along with the organic design is something I have not seen on any building. There is what appears to be a Christmas tree topping the front facade.
My only regret is not going inside as it was waaaay too hot to stand in line for hours to get inside. Though I walked around it taking pictures.
You missed out. The stained glass windows are absolutely stunning. I normally don't get too excited about stained glass, but they are truly beautiful as is much of the interior.
The Sagrada Família gives me a kind of weird optimism and hope for technology and what it could be. I went to Europe for the first time this year, and I remember repeatedly thinking as I saw buildings like the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Duomo in Florence, how sad it is that humanity doesn't build beautiful things anymore (fair enough when they take like 200 years).
Then you see this, a church over 100 years in the making, finally being realised in the last ~10 years because innovations in stone cutting have made these intricate designs more feasible and progress has rapidly improved. It's awesome.
Many churches were in construction for over a century. Very typical and, although obviously people were elated when one was finished, getting there fast was not a source of anxiety.
I'd say we've stopped making these types of grand monuments, but that's been relatively recent. Think of things like the Chrysler building or the Empire State building, they have tons of unnecessary ornamentation and are still very impressive structures. But art deco architecture is kinda the last period I can think of where that was the case, although I'm definitely not an architecture expert. If there are more modern examples, please link them since I would love to be proved mistaken here.
We have plenty of modern monuments, but they are different. Adding to your NYC examples, I see Little Island and the Vessel as monuments of their own leagues.
Never had a worse personal anxiety experience than visiting it 15 yrs ago with my nephews who were 4 and 5yrs old. At the time you could go up elevators on the side of the new facade but you had to walk down spiral staircases on the old side. Those staircases have a huge open circle all the way down to the bottom. I was so worried for those kids. First time I had experienced anything close to parental fear. My brother and my sister in-law on the other hand never seemed phased.
That said. Dying to go back. So much progress has been made since then.
I was transferring through Barcelona and I didn't intend to spend any time there, so I had done absolutely no research on it.
But the connection was late so we were put on a bus tour of the city, starting with the mountains outside it. The bus let us out at an overlook with a view of the city, which looked more or less like any other far off city.
And then... what the holy hell was that Thing dominating the skyline? It didn't even look real. I had to refocus my eyes just to be able to actually see it.
I never did get to go inside, but we drove past, and the driver explained the history of Sagrada Familia. As bizarre as it was from a distance it's even weirder up close. It looks like something by HR Giger. I dare not imagine what's inside.
99% invisible made an amazing episode on this nearly 10 years ago. The story of gaudi, how he died, how the plans of the church were destroyed, and how they're reconstructing the architecture. All that aside, the cathedral is mind blowing.
As others have said the Sagrada Familia is incredible and I had high expectations given all the controversy around it. I've visited many historic churches during my travels and it's my favorite one. Really neat to see it reach this stage.
This is one of the most magnificent buildings I've seen in my life and everyone should go see it even if you're not religious. It's incredible the vision the architect had over 100 years ago.
>This is one of the most magnificent buildings I've seen in my life and everyone should go see it even if you're not religious.
On the flipside, I remember thinking it was a kitsch architectural icon and my family was bullying me into going to visit by dictating my plans while solo traveling.
When I went inside, I had a brief moment where I was struck by awe, and wondered if I should consider converting to Catholicism.
> wondered if I should consider converting to Catholicism
You’re not alone. This is one very conscious motivation for the beauty of Catholic art (not the only motive, but a very real one). Beauty is intelligible and leads the mind upward, toward its ultimate source. Beauty is understood as a transcendental, along with the good, the true, and unity, which is to say, being understood from different perspectives.
In other words, beauty has been an instrument for leading people toward conversion for a long time. There’s even the term “apostolate of beauty” [0].
To be fair, many cathedrals in the past took well over 100 years to build (ie. Notre Dame @ 182 years), and it wasn't an unusual idea at the time construction started that it could take this long.
Of course one would think modern methods would have sped things up considerably, but it wasn't until the advent of technologies this century that things really progressed.
I think many cathedrals like Notre Dame were completed several times. It was 182 years from construction until the last addition was finished. Whereas Sagrada Familia is only now just completing its original design. When I first saw the structure, there was no central tower and no plans to actually build it. But you could see it in the plans in the museum there.
it is somewhat sad that we don't start right now any immense scale project requiring decades of construction. With today and tomorrow tech we could possibly build say hundred kilometer long several kilometer high space launch rail gun or something like this.
I'm not sure about "ugly," but it's certainly no more outdated than most places in Europe, and tourists will continue to flood in regardless. No one will miss to visit the Sagrada Família for sure.
More important, in the nearly hundred and fifty years it has taken for the church to assume its final form, Gaudí’s once revolutionary aesthetic no longer looks futuristic. Early critics of the Sagrada Família accused Gaudí of being too over the top, but his commitment to visual abundance has become a universal aspect of pop culture—think of the ornate C.G.I. cityscapes in “Black Panther” or the “Star Wars” films.
I was never into architecture and am not a religious person but visiting the Sagrada Familia was profound. I came out a slightly different man than one who walked into it just half an hour before. No CGI hack comes close.
I'm Christian, so slightly different context going in, but I also found it profound. I've been to other churches and cathedrals (including the Vatican!) and they feel sterile by comparison. Stepping inside to the sight of a towering forest of stone and dazzling light is truly breathtaking. It made me genuinely emotional.
It's nothing like I've ever seen before so I'm surprised by the comments at the end of the article that make it seem like its originality has waned over the years. You can feel the conviction and passion that have been poured into it for over a century.
I can't wait to visit it again. I really love it.
Same here. It was an amazing experience. I was lucky on my visit day and time that it was sunny and the sun was setting down which made spectacles of light show inside. I just stood in the middle for half an hour amazed.
I've been twice, and unfortunately it was cloudy on my second trip.
The difference light quality makes to the experience is remarkable, and I implore anyone that visits to ensure you go at the right times on a clear sunny day.
You may think you've seen well lit stained glass before, but it's like freaking lazer beams of thick light penetrating the environment to the point where it doesn't seem natural.
I’m doing a nerdy Catholic project that calls for attending Mass at churches all over Chicago (https://www.dahosek.com/category/catholic-nerd-pilgrimage/) and one recent church had an east-facing wall that was entirely stained glass that was quite a dramatic effect during a morning Mass. The right combination of architecture, geography and weather can do some amazing things.
I had a similar experience. The "Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus" written in stone was not an aspiration or a motto for me when I visited, it was a statement of fact.
Gaudi wanted it to be a monument to Christ but it ended up as a monument to Gaudi.
When the commission is to create the most impressive structure possible, anything less would be a failure. That is just how the Catholic church rolls. See most European art and culture for the last 1500 years for details.
And when you ask Gaudí, he points to Christ
Not a monument but tourist attraction like Disneyland.
Just about every monument is a tourist attraction, including this monument.
It can be both. And, I know some animators who consider Disneyland to be something of a monument itself.
This makes me wonder if, 7 centuries ago, people thought the same about the designer of the Notre Dame.
I humorlessly looked it up, and it was a 200 year project with several people making major contributions, not a single mastermind.
Not sure “celebrities” were such a thing as they are today. 7 centuries was before the reformation and things were pretty austere. Surely nobles celebrated things and there were favored artisans but celebrated as crassly as we do today in such abundance. I don’t think the media existed to allow that to take place.
Eh, they certainly weren't celebrities in the same way, that would only be possible with modern broadcast media. But people like the pope, kings, and dukes would be pretty close. I would expect the average medieval peasant would know who the pope (or popes, depending on the date) were, and at the least who their king was, as well as the relevant nobles for their village. And I wouldn't be surprised if they knew who the neighboring kings and nobles were. A peasant from the Iberian peninsula might not know who the king of Poland was, but they would likely know who the French king was and likely who was emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
And medieval people definitely built monuments to themselves. A great example is Battle Abbey [0]. The official reason it was built was as penance for William the conqueror killing so many English, but there is definitely a strong case to be made that building such a grand abbey was in 0art to signify the new Norman rule and to remind people of who was in charge. They weren't venerating the architect, but it was very clear to everyone who paid for the abbey and William remained very much linked to the structure. That would have been one of the most impressive buildings for a very large area, even it's ruins remain impressive nearly a millennium later. It's a religious building, but it was even at the time very much linked to a secular ruler (inasmuch as the rulers of the time were secular).
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Abbey
Same. After I went…
> On a perfect September afternoon, I walked alone to find the church.
> One moment, only trees. The next, La Sagrada Familia.
> To stand there, before the century of brilliance and determination that combined to create this mass of stone and glass, on the edge between nature and society, and see, and sense that I too am seen, was one of the great privileges of my life.
and trees inside as well, as the columns are meant to mimic a forest.
The lighting alone is insane. Hard to describe it.
You have to be lucky to get a sunny day though. Of course it's Barcelona so that's pretty likely. But on a sunny day the colours are much deeper. The best lighting you get near the end of the day when the sun is low and shines the colours right across the whole church. It's an amazing kaleidoscope.
[dead]
Same — it’s absolutely other-worldly. Like being in an alien spaceship. Truly breathtaking. One of my favourite places in the world.
I just got back from a family vacation there. I was tired that day, it was hot and crowded, and I started thinking, "I wonder if this will be worth it."
I found myself astounded, struck speechless, and moved to tears. I was in awe.
Gaudi is someone we software engineers should revere. He made things precisely and powerfully functional while also making them beautiful.
Do not miss seeing Sagrada Familia if you ever get the chance.
Visited this a few months ago, somehow having never heard of it as an American (in the way that I learned about Notre Dame and St. Peter’s and Westminster Abbey) and it surpassed the hype far more than any European famous attraction I’ve ever been to.
I first glimpsed it while doing a touristy bike tour my first day in Barcelona and it’s hard to convey how surreal it is, like a video game’s final level glitching into its tutorial stage.
Lots of experience with video games glitching, but not sure how your analogy applies here. Can you elaborate some more?
Not the person you’re replying to, but I’m sure they mean something like, imagine the tutorial level in a normal town, but the boss’s final lair from the Catholic moon has glitched into the middle of the tutorial town.
Yes, like on the old Final Fantasy Super Nintendo games.
The Sagrada Familia is pretty well known, but I just want to put a plug here for some other buildings by Gaudi you can go see: https://www.barcelona-life.com/barcelona/gaudi
That said, if on limited time, definitely see the Sagrada Familia. It was one of my favourite tourist sites in Spain, even beyond just Barcelona.
Yes!
Parc Guell https://parkguell.barcelona/ and La Padera https://www.lapedrera.com/en are must sees for Gaudi
Don't forget casa Batlló - visits are by appointment only (I think) but even just seeing the building’s exterior is pretty awesome.
No you can just book a ticket like with all the others. Always buy a ticket online. Otherwise you'll be stuck in a queue. The Sagrada stopped doing on the spot visits because the queue was getting too long and Battló did as well. Only at la pedrera (or casa Milà as it's really called) can you still buy a ticket on site. But I wouldn't. You're just wasting your time waiting while all the prebooks go ahead of you.
Battló is the best one for me by far. I love the organic shapes and the light well and the soft wood etc. Wow
This business about having to book tickets online in Europe is pretty much new to me. I never used to have to do this with rare exceptions.
They also do some cool projections on the façade in December.
Casa Batllo is pretty nice as well.
Strongly recommend Casa Batllo - it's magnificent. It pulls off this trick of being slightly surreal, but yet completely cozy. There's not a single inch of it that isn't unique and interesting to look at, and yet far from being visually overwhelming, it's immensely restful. I'd move into it tomorrow.
All that said, if they still have the LED-installation at the exit - and if you're like me, and a little sensitive to visual stimuli - avoid it at all costs. It is 360° (or more? I think it's the floor and ceiling, too) of flashing lights and sound, which reduced me to a catatonic state, squatting in the corner with my eyes tight shut and my hands pressed over my ears. It was almost, but not quite (which says something for how good the house itself is), enough to ruin the experience.
The amazing thing with this church and Barcelona is not the genius of Gaudi.
It's that the city of Barcelona happily let him build his gloriously insane buildings all across town, and on top of that get free reign over the ginormous cathedral project!
Having lived in San Francisco, it seems absolutely unreal...
Visited Barcelona a decade ago to see this. It's awesome. I often think calling it "kitsch" is some sort of unfortunate linguistic quirk because Antonio Gaudi's name evokes "gaudy."
The thing is a celebration of creation, inventiveness, and natural beauty. Maybe even playfulness - though being a catholic building there's some requisite "death" mixed in: I guess the full spectrum of life is lurking in there.
I kind of envy those who can so easily dismiss something like SF. Just try to imagine what they must have experienced to become so blasé.
An element of Gaudi's work I didn't appreciate until I was in Barcelona is the usage of biological structures in his architecture. You can see somewhat in the image looking at the ceiling, but the columns really do evoke the sense of being in a forest of pure white, towering trees with the ceiling as its canopy.
Eh, I thought I made a pretty good joke when someone said "the sagrada familia is pretty gaudy" and I said "it's pronounced 'Gaudí'".
I'd echo everyone else on how awe-inspiring this building is. One thing that's particularly interesting is that, while the outside is extremely cluttered and ornate, the inside is almost spare by comparison, and achieves a level of immersive awe that I've never experienced before.
In that sense, the building is almost too successful - a church is meant to glorify God, but there's no disentangling the Sagrada from Gaudi. You cannot stand in the building and not feel a sense of awe for the mind that created this, and the building is far, far too famous to ever be a servicing church. It was such an interesting contradiction of an achievement - it's such an incredible artistic accomplishment and so successful in its intent to inspire and as an act of devotion that you just cannot look past the finger to see the moon. The artist eclipses the subject.
(As an aside, Orwell makes mention of the Sagrada Familia in Homage to Catalonia, and it's an incredible paragraph: "For the first time since I had been in Barcelona I went to have a look at the cathedral – a modern cathedral, and one of the most hideous buildings in the world... Unlike most of the churches in Barcelona it was not damaged during the revolution – it was spared because of its ‘artistic value’, people said. I think the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up when they had the chance.")
FYI it isn’t a cathedral. A cathedral is not a type of building, but the seat of the bishop (“cathedra” meaning “seat”). It is a common misconception that a cathedral is a grand church, since many cathedrals are, in fact, grand. Check out the Co-Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Juneau, Alaska to see a modest example.
Sagrada Família is, however, a basilica which is a title of honor bestowed on churches by the pope.
I did not know that! Thank you - updated, except for the quote from Orwell, who gets to show his ass even further thanks to your correction.
I visited last month and it is incredibly stunning to see in person. The amazing amount of detail on the facade carvings along with the organic design is something I have not seen on any building. There is what appears to be a Christmas tree topping the front facade.
My only regret is not going inside as it was waaaay too hot to stand in line for hours to get inside. Though I walked around it taking pictures.
You missed out. The stained glass windows are absolutely stunning. I normally don't get too excited about stained glass, but they are truly beautiful as is much of the interior.
https://archive.ph/qTTbE
The Sagrada Família gives me a kind of weird optimism and hope for technology and what it could be. I went to Europe for the first time this year, and I remember repeatedly thinking as I saw buildings like the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Duomo in Florence, how sad it is that humanity doesn't build beautiful things anymore (fair enough when they take like 200 years).
Then you see this, a church over 100 years in the making, finally being realised in the last ~10 years because innovations in stone cutting have made these intricate designs more feasible and progress has rapidly improved. It's awesome.
Many churches were in construction for over a century. Very typical and, although obviously people were elated when one was finished, getting there fast was not a source of anxiety.
The Church has all the time in the world.
I'd say we've stopped making these types of grand monuments, but that's been relatively recent. Think of things like the Chrysler building or the Empire State building, they have tons of unnecessary ornamentation and are still very impressive structures. But art deco architecture is kinda the last period I can think of where that was the case, although I'm definitely not an architecture expert. If there are more modern examples, please link them since I would love to be proved mistaken here.
We have plenty of modern monuments, but they are different. Adding to your NYC examples, I see Little Island and the Vessel as monuments of their own leagues.
Never had a worse personal anxiety experience than visiting it 15 yrs ago with my nephews who were 4 and 5yrs old. At the time you could go up elevators on the side of the new facade but you had to walk down spiral staircases on the old side. Those staircases have a huge open circle all the way down to the bottom. I was so worried for those kids. First time I had experienced anything close to parental fear. My brother and my sister in-law on the other hand never seemed phased.
That said. Dying to go back. So much progress has been made since then.
I visited it last year for the first time. Indescribably stunning, I can't recommend it enough.
I was transferring through Barcelona and I didn't intend to spend any time there, so I had done absolutely no research on it.
But the connection was late so we were put on a bus tour of the city, starting with the mountains outside it. The bus let us out at an overlook with a view of the city, which looked more or less like any other far off city.
And then... what the holy hell was that Thing dominating the skyline? It didn't even look real. I had to refocus my eyes just to be able to actually see it.
I never did get to go inside, but we drove past, and the driver explained the history of Sagrada Familia. As bizarre as it was from a distance it's even weirder up close. It looks like something by HR Giger. I dare not imagine what's inside.
I will have to go some day.
99% invisible made an amazing episode on this nearly 10 years ago. The story of gaudi, how he died, how the plans of the church were destroyed, and how they're reconstructing the architecture. All that aside, the cathedral is mind blowing.
It’s such an awesome cathedral. It’s def worth going just for this. Go. Spend a few hours just taking it all in. It’s amazing.
It’s not a cathedral, it’s a basilica. Barcelona’s cathedral is Santa Eulalia.
I wonder if the bishop will move to the Sagrada when it's finished though?
That’s right, though a cathedral can also be a basilica (like the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey).
I can't help but feel Warhammer 40K vibes when looking at this thing. It's a monstrosity, directly from the Warp
I know, it's great, isn't it!
Im not that interested in architecture, but this was stunning. Such immense vision from original the architect.
As others have said the Sagrada Familia is incredible and I had high expectations given all the controversy around it. I've visited many historic churches during my travels and it's my favorite one. Really neat to see it reach this stage.
If you haven’t: you must visit.
Visited it in 1984, and it has come a long way since then. I don't think it had a roof at the time.
Have to go back to see the inside which looks amazing.
This is one of the most magnificent buildings I've seen in my life and everyone should go see it even if you're not religious. It's incredible the vision the architect had over 100 years ago.
>This is one of the most magnificent buildings I've seen in my life and everyone should go see it even if you're not religious.
On the flipside, I remember thinking it was a kitsch architectural icon and my family was bullying me into going to visit by dictating my plans while solo traveling.
When I went inside, I had a brief moment where I was struck by awe, and wondered if I should consider converting to Catholicism.
> wondered if I should consider converting to Catholicism
You’re not alone. This is one very conscious motivation for the beauty of Catholic art (not the only motive, but a very real one). Beauty is intelligible and leads the mind upward, toward its ultimate source. Beauty is understood as a transcendental, along with the good, the true, and unity, which is to say, being understood from different perspectives.
In other words, beauty has been an instrument for leading people toward conversion for a long time. There’s even the term “apostolate of beauty” [0].
[0] https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?rec...
It's astoundingly beautiful.
It gives me hope that sometimes, mankind can take a long term project. Even with warts and all.
To be fair, many cathedrals in the past took well over 100 years to build (ie. Notre Dame @ 182 years), and it wasn't an unusual idea at the time construction started that it could take this long.
Of course one would think modern methods would have sped things up considerably, but it wasn't until the advent of technologies this century that things really progressed.
I think many cathedrals like Notre Dame were completed several times. It was 182 years from construction until the last addition was finished. Whereas Sagrada Familia is only now just completing its original design. When I first saw the structure, there was no central tower and no plans to actually build it. But you could see it in the plans in the museum there.
I think you meant the 20th century?
No, this century. The majority of the building was built over the past 25 years. The last 15 years in particular have been a speed run to finish it.
it is somewhat sad that we don't start right now any immense scale project requiring decades of construction. With today and tomorrow tech we could possibly build say hundred kilometer long several kilometer high space launch rail gun or something like this.
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> ugly and already outdated
I'm not sure about "ugly," but it's certainly no more outdated than most places in Europe, and tourists will continue to flood in regardless. No one will miss to visit the Sagrada Família for sure.
as you say, the only function of Sagrada Familia is to extract money from tourists.
Tourists go home
I'm sad that you got flagged for expressing your aesthetic opinion, but I think it's a beautiful achievement.
It's more the tourists go home thing I think.
I agree the tourism is a bit much at times but I don't blame the tourists. We're all tourists somewhere at one point.
I'm very happy Barcelona is revoking all the AirBnB licenses though.