Sagrada Familia

The Sagrada Familia – Antoni Gaudi – 1882 – Current Day

This wonderful building has been under construction for 136 years and is not due to be completed until 2026. The project will be completed to mark the 100 year anniversary of the Gaudi’s death.

Gaudi took over the design and building of this cathedral in 1883 and spent 43 years of his life working on it. He even moved in to his study in later years and spent the last years of his life living there, devoting his life solely to its work.

The Nativity facade.

The detail in this building and in this facade particularly is mind blowing. The facade depicts scenes from the nativity. I have since read a lot more about this building in a book I bought called “The Basilica Of The Sagrada Familia” (the Visual Edition) by Dosde Publishing which is very detailed and explains all elements of the building in great detail.Pictures from the Cathedral’s interior belowThe vaults that you can see in this column enabled Gaudi to build this building without the traditional method of buttresses. These vaults provide support for the building and also an interesting interior space designed to look like a forest. You can see in this picture that the vaults divide and multiply just like tree branches.The helmets upon the above figures (the Soldiers) remind me very much of some of the chimneys designed for the Casa Mila (a private residence designed by Gaudi), I have since read in the book about the Sagrada Familia (mentioned above) That the inspiration did in fact come from those chimneys and was also done so in homage to Gaudi.These hard lined sculptures on the passion facade are very different to the shapes on the other facades. I found out in the museum that the passion facade is all about the crucifixion of Jesus. The blunt, harsh lines of all of the sculpture work on this facade was designed to depict the mourning and suffering caused by these events.Workshop of the Sagrada Familia