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Europe 1800 - 1900
Course: Europe 1800 - 1900 > Unit 6
Lesson 7: SpainGaudí, Sagrada Família
Antoni Gaudí, Church of the Sagrada Família or Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família Basilica, 1882- (consecrated 2010, but still under construction), Barcelona, Spain. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Why has this church taken so long to build? I wouldn't have thought it would take over 100 years to construct a building, even one as complex as this one is.(5 votes)
- For several reasons. And there may be more. Gaudi died, unexpectedly. He left few plans for completion and those he did leave were destroyed in a fire. The anti-religeous political atmosphere in Barcelona was not favorable to completing a "church". Those people who wanted to complete the church could not decide on how it should be completed. Some early attempts at completion were totally panned by critics or insulted the populace.(9 votes)
- Breathtaking indeed . . . Does anyone know when aproximatelly will Sagrada be completed?(6 votes)
- The final completion date is set to 2026, marking the hundredth anniversary of Gaudí's death. They aren't very confident about meeting this deadline, though, and construction may last even longer than that.(7 votes)
- Did Gaudi design this church in detail and is the work done on this church after his death still following his designs?(1 vote)
- Not exactly, Gaudi changed his plans very often so in reality no one knows what he would have done. Many people disagree with what they've done and consider it against the vision of Gaudi.(5 votes)
- You need to see it in person too understand it beautiful glory and size(2 votes)
- Agreed. Until I can do that, though, this will help a little. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwlH-J4k-T4(1 vote)
- How would you cite this video using MLA?(1 vote)
Video transcript
(piano music) Male: We're in Barcelona, standing in front of Sagrada Familia, the most unusual building
I have ever seen. Female: The audio guide
describes it as eclectic, and I think that that's
a good description. Male: Most of the church
is actually the results of work that's been
taking place after Gaudi, but is fairly strictly adhering
to his original program. Female: We're in front
of one of three facades. This one's called the Passion Facade, and it's decorated with sculptures representing Christ's
suffering and man's sinfulness. Male: These are much later sculptures. Female: Right now the
sun is shining on it. but there are giant shadows cast by these columns that
emerge from the facade and, in a way, serve to bring us in. They reach out to us. Male: I almost don't
want to call them columns because they're at such a stark angle. Columns are not at angles like this. These are buttresses. As you look at their bases, they look like the bottoms
of the trunks of trees, something totally organic about them. Female: In fact, the facade feels sort of like a web, doesn't it? Male: It does, and it
feels as if those columns are actually being stretched, the way that a web might be stretched, and that there is something
that's actually mutable about them, that they're moving. Female: So there's a strange mixture of a sense of geometry and planarity, and a sense of movement in the organic. Male: The church takes the position that that geometry is actually a way of expressing what is important in the Catholic tradition. In fact, Gaudi spoke of
the notion of the grid, which he's turning and curving in space, as actually being set of three elements, of the vertical, of a horizontal, and, of course, of the intersection of the two, locking them in place, the vertical being God the Father, the horizontal being Christ, and the intersection
being the Holy Spirit. There is a kind of interesting attempt to - oh, you can hear the
bells of the church now - there is a kind of interesting attempt to really fully integrate
symbolism, church tradition, structure and, of course, the aesthetics of the church itself, into a kind of perfect and unified whole. Female: And, like the Gothic architects, Gaudi wanted to create
the heavenly Jerusalem and the feeling, when
one entered the church, of entering heaven on Earth. Male: I think that's a perfect
segue. Let's go inside. Female: Okay. Male: We've just walked
into the Sagrada Familia and it is extraordinary. It is a kaleidoscope of
light and darkness and form. Female: Actually, I think
the word kaleidoscope is a good one because, in a kaleidoscope, you move the ring around
and the forms change, and it feels very much like that. As you look up at the ceiling, there are geometric shapes, and fracturing of shapes,
and color coming in from the stained glass windows, and a real complexity and mystery. I keep thinking about
that forest metaphor, which is really true. It feels like one is
walking into a stone forest. Male: We should mention that the church is quite loud. There's a
lot of background noise. There's a lot of dust in the air, and that's because there are, literally, dozens of workmen who are busily preparing for the Pope's visit later this week. This church has been under
construction since 1882 and now, in 2010, the
Pope is coming to visit, this week, to consecrate the church. So they're going to make sure, I think, that the
interior is ready for him. Female: There's amazing light coming in through the
stained glass windows, but also through the clear
glass along the nave, and it really has that sense of the effect of dappled sunlight
coming through a forest. Male: This is the strangest
integration of classicism, but also of the Gothic
notion of the organics of the church as something that grows, in a sense, up to heaven, but here taken much more literally. If we look at the individual piers, which are one of the sort of great units, of course, of traditional
Gothic architecture, we have something, in some ways, much more complex. Not only is each pier,
although paired with another, quite individual but,
within the individual units, there's a kind of incredible
geometric complexity. Starting at the bottom,
we have a grounded lobing that eventually clarifies
into a more traditional Doric fluting, which then divides, almost as if it's alive, and the number of points in the flutes actually double, and then double again, until the column almost
becomes simply a round. Female: I find the capitals to be among the strangest things
I've ever seen in my life. Some of them are decorated
with oval shapes, but then others of them
have this giant oval on one side of them, filled
with glass and images that seem to be lit
from inside the column. It's creepy and organic and animal-like, and forest-like, and leaf-like, and, simultaneously, Gothic church-like all at the same time. Male: The church is an
enormously successful synthesis of bravery, of invention, of both classical and Gothic form, of geometry, of piety, and of linking our contemporary world and our contemporary technologies with an extraordinary
historical precedent. (piano music)