Hello! Today we are going to look at the most visited monument in all of Spain. It’s a church
that revolutionized architecture and continues to attract and astonish of millions of visitors
every year. We're going to be looking at Antoni Gaudi’s famous Sagrada Família,
notably located in the city of Barcelona, Spain. Sagrada Familia or the Basilica of the Holy Family
was begun in 1882 in a Neo-Gothic style. But when 30 year-old- architect Antoni Gaudi got on board,
he completely reimagined it with his unique, organic architectural style. He transformed
the designs into something that was part-Gothic, part-Art Nouveau, and part-dripping sand castle.
It’s hard to describe Gaudi’s designs because they were unlike anything that existed before in
architecture. Gaudi didn’t look to other architectural structures for ideas, but instead,
drew his inspiration from what he saw in nature. He looked to mountains, seas, trees, and cliffs
and became fascinated with the complex patterns he saw all around him. As a devout Christian,
he viewed the beauty in nature as a gift from the creator God and aimed to
celebrate this through his designs. Gaudi once said, “Originality exists by going back to the
origins.” And with his unique vision, he gave us something the world had never seen.
He designed the church with eighteen spires, representing the twelve apostles, the virgin Mary,
and the four evangelists. The tallest tower is meant to represent Jesus Christ
and evoke what it feels like to be closer to God. It seems that every square inch of this
building has some kind of spiritual symbolism or significance. It’s incredible. And that’s largely
because Gaudi was extremely devout and wanted to use his artistic abilities to bring glory to God.
In addition to being master artist, he was also a master engineer and ingeniously used
physics to ensure his creative designs could also uphold the structural integrity of the church.
The church has three facades: the Nativity façade, the Passion façade, and the Glory façade.
The Nativity façade is located on the east and faces the rising sun as a symbol for the birth
of Christ. The exterior seems to organically grow and evolve as the magnitude of Christ’s
incarnation is remarkably transformed into stone. The Passion façade is gravely different.
This is because it aimed to conceptually capture the depravity of humanity and the suffering of
Christ through his crucifixion. Unlike the Nativity façade, the exterior is plain and austere
with bare stone and harsh lines that almost look skeletal. In an unprecedented manner,
the exterior treelike columns stretch out from the earth and in doing so, mimic the stretching
of Christ’s arms and the straining rib cage seen on the façade’s abstracted crucifix.
The church’s largest façade is the Glory Façade and it was intended to represent the road to God.
It has seven doors, representing the seven sacraments of the Catholic faith.
This façade is not yet complete, but it is predicted to be the most striking of all.
Perhaps one of the most stunning aspects of this church is what you see on the inside.
Like Gothic architecture, the church was meant to transport visitors to a heavenly realm the moment
they stepped inside. Twisting columns shoot up like trees, rising to create an exploding canopy
nearly 150 feet into the air leaving visitors wide eyed and overwhelmed. Every surface of this church
feels alive and unravels in beautiful geometry and blooming organic forms. Rainbow colors
explode through the ornate stained-glass windows, flooding the interior with rich fragmented color.
It’s really too much to take in. And the more you look, the richer and more complex it seems.
Elaborate curves are morphed into abstract jagged forms and capitals are decorated with glowing oval
shapes with religious imagery. Every element and aims to mysteriously transport you into a
spiritual realm. The architect Louis Sullivan once remarked that “it is spirit symbolized in stone."
The more Gaudi invested into this church design, the more he had became engulfed in the project,
leading him to withdraw from all other work and dedicating the rest of his life to the task. He
worked on the project for 43 years, spending the last decades of his life devoted to prayer
and overseeing its construction. Despite his dedication, Gaudi knew he would never live to
see its completion, and when he died tragically at age 73, the project was less than 25% complete.
Since Gaudi’s death in 1926, generations of designers have dedicated their lives and
used various technologies to carry out Gaudi’s incredible and complex vision.
After decades of tireless construction efforts, the church was consecrated by the pope in 2010
and is projected to be complete by the 2030s. When considering all of the different structures
that have been designed and created throughout the history of mankind, Sagrada Familia is one
that rises to the top. A pinnacle of Barcelona, it stands as a testimony to Gaudi’s creative vision,
bravery, and architectural genius. It’s abstracted organic forms bring together nature, tradition,
contemporary life, and the spiritual realm, harmoniously blending them together in a space
that takes your breath away. Sagrada Familia reminds us that architecture has the power
to not only transform nations and cities, but individual hearts as well.