15
We're in Gaudí's
(and other designers at the beginning) Sagrada Familía. It's so cool, and so
big. It was meant originally to be a very normal gothic church (built on a plot
of cheap land on what used to be the outskirts of town because money was tight
at first), but when Gaudí held the reigns, it turned into the beauty it is
today. The architecture is based on nature and religion. Its still under construction. There's three
entrances; passion, nativity, and glory. Gaudí completed the nativity side
while he was alive (he died in 1926) and it is full of symbolism and stories.
They're the stories of Christ's birth and childhood, surrounded by fruits and
animals and plants of spring and summer. Apparently he wanted to complete the
"optimistic" side first in order to receive more funding. We got a
guided tour of the place so there are many small facts that we learned.
I love the style of
the carvings and statues on the nativity side as well as on the opposite
passion side; Christ's death/resurrection. The statues on the passion side are
all very geometrical, and tell the story of Jesus' life through pictures. At
the top is Jesus on the cross and off to the side some roman soldiers playing
dice for his clothes. At the bottom is the last supper and Judas' betrayal and
Jesus carrying the cross. There's also a man on horseback, which was the only
figure our guide didn't tell us anything about.
Inside the Sagrada
Familía is like the inside of a forest. There are 56 (or 58? Can't remember)
stone pillars that are styled as Palm trees with their branches supporting the
arches of the roof. Inside the four main tree pillars are giant glass convex ellipses
of bright colour with black line drawings of symbols for each of Mathew, Marc,
Luke, and John. I forget who was who but there was a bird, an ox, an angel, and
a lion, all with angel wings. Still to be built are the tallest towers, the
Jesus tower and the Maria tower (there's more to be built as well but the tower
will be the tallest point of the cathedral). The entire project will be
complete in maybe about 30 years, within my lifetime. This is incredible
because there were cathedrals that we saw earlier on this trip that took 400
years or more to build, and this one is immense and complicated and a piece of
art and will take only under 200 years to build. It's amazing right now, but I
can't even imagine what it will feel like to stand in front of the finished
thing. We saw models and drawings in an underground section showcasing Gaudí's
work. A lot of his original models were destroyed in the Spanish civil war soon
after he died, but most of them have now been reconstructed using fragments and
his drawings. The way to design the curves at points of the tall cathedral was
to hang bags of sand from strings in order to create a string model hanging
from the ceiling, which is the cathedral shape upside down. They had one such
model hanging in the place. Gaudí also used hyperbolas (3 dimensional of
course) to let on as much sunlight as possible (and it is quite bright in the
inside with beautiful stained glass and many windows). I'm sure the mathematics
behind his architecture are wonderfully complex, and it's do much fun because
you end up with an art piece that is mathematical, geometrical, and organized
but still beautiful (much like nature).
In the main space of
the cathedral, Sammy and I tracked a wifi signal called
"STEVEC-GOPRO" to a guy using a go pro. We think his name was Steve
but we tried saying it loudly next to him but he didn't respond. But he was
wearing earbuds. It was always stronger near him though, so I'm pretty sure it
was him. We also decided that it's lucky to touch Jesus' left calf muscle on
his depiction at the passion gate tied to a falling pillar representing the
Roman Empire. His calf is quite pointy due to the geometrical style. We met
under the trees with the green parrots flying around in them to go to lunch and
the market.
Eryn, Tekahra, and I
went to the market. I got Some amazing freshly squeezed mango juice. It's
amazing how many different fruits you can buy there; almost as many as the
amount of people there (it was shoulder to shoulder busy). I also got some
artisanal macadamia nuts (I tried one-they are so goo, but a bit expensive).
Then we stopped for lunch at the cheap falafals place we went to last night and
went back to the Casa Gracia; our hostel. Then I spent an hour writing all of
this down, and now I'm going to get in a quick nap before I have to pack my
bags and shower and head out again for dinner. We are leaving at 4am tomorrow
to start the long process of coming home. Many hours of travel ahead.
No comments:
Post a Comment