Today’s the day we begin our look at the work of Gaudí, the artist and architect whose work is currently the biggest tourist attraction in Barcelona.

BTW, Chris wanted me to title this post “A Howdy to Gaudì”. You would need to put the stress on the last syllables in order to get the pronunciation right, [howDEE] to [GauDEE].  While it has a ring to it, you can see why I decided on an alternate title.

In any case, over the next few posts, I’ll be sharing some photos of Gaudí’s works, along with my very irreverent comments on my reaction to them. To paraphase Shakespeare’s Mark Antony, I come not to bury Gaudí but to praise him.

You have been warned.

Anyway, let’s start by understanding who Gaudí was. Here’s an excerpt from his bio in Wikipedia entry:

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet  (25 June 1852–10 June 1926) was a Spanish Catalan architect and figurehead of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí’s works reflect his highly individual and distinctive style and are largely concentrated in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, notably his magnum opus, the Sagrada Família.

Much of Gaudí’s work was marked by his four life passions: architecture, nature, religion and love for Catalonia.^[3] Gaudí studied every detail of his creations, integrating into his architecture a series of crafts in which he was skilled: ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironworkforging and carpentry. He introduced new techniques in the treatment of materials, such as trencadís, made of waste ceramic pieces.

The work that combines all of Gaudí’s passions is his magnum opus, the Sagrada Familia (“sacred family”) the cathedral that he designed back in the late 1800’s.  Just to be clear, the cathedral in Barcelona that I already blogged about is what I called “the other cathedral” in Barcelona. Construction started on Gaudí’s cathedral in 1883, and it is still under construction today.

We first saw it from the tourist bus, as the bus turned a corner. All at once, up ahead of us, was something that was unlike any building we’d ever seen before. Actually, in the Wikipedia entry for Sagrada Familia, it quotes the art critic Rainer Zerbst, who said “it is probably impossible to find a church building anything like it in the entire history of art.”  I’d agree with that.

Sagrada Familia has spires that don’t look like any spires you’ve ever seen before. It has things in stone “growing” from it that defy description, although they are supposed to be rooted in patterns that are found in nature. This cathedral is at once imposing, intriguing and mystifying.

But above all else, in my mind it’s also a bizarre mess. The cranes that necessarily surround and hover over the incomplete structures form an uneasy alliance with the overall design of the church.  I find it amusing that the Wikipedia entry about this church has at the top a photo of Sagrada Familia that has been digitally enhanced to remove those omnipresent cranes and scaffolding: here’s a link that will open that “corrected” photo in a new window.  That photo provides a strikingly different impression of the Cathedral, compared to what you see with all the cranes, etc. closeup. I’m still not crazy about it even in that photo, but at least you can see the forest for the trees, as it were .. or at least the spires for the cranes.

On the tour bus, the taped spiel about this cathedral explains that the construction is funded entirely through private donations. Apparently that was part of Gaudí’s design, that it be funded by the people, and this is also supposed to be part of its charm as a church. Of course, this funding model has caused work to pause every so often during the past 100+ years as they periodically run out of cash. These days, if you want to view inside of the cathedral, you need to pay a rather hefty admission price ($20-$25) to go inside. All the PR materials (on the bus and around town) remind you that by buying a ticket, you are contributing to the construction of a masterpiece of Barcelona Modernism.  I guess that is supposed to make you feel better about paying $25 to go see the inside of a church.

The reaction that both Chris and I had to our first glimpse of this church was “what the heck was Gaudí smoking when he designed that?” Truly, the designs on the outside are unusual.  While he may have claimed to have based it on the shapes and forms found in nature, I’ve gotta think that he had different kind of glasses on as he looked around his world.

I took all the photos below from the bus (it conveniently stopped out front for a few minutes), so perhaps I didn’t get a really good sense of the beauty that surrounds the place. Quite frankly, what I saw didn’t inspire me to get off the bus to take another look. The Barcelona tourism board isn’t ever going to hire me, I guess, but I just didn’t really see why Gaudí gets all the press these days, when there are other more interesting buildings, by other architectures, all over Barcelona. But to me, Sagrada Familia is nothing more than a curiosity that seems a bit over-hyped.  I would describe other cathedrals I’ve seen (e.g. Notre Dame, St. Peter’s, the cathedral in Seville, etc.) as  beautiful … magnificent .. stupendous .. awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, what came to mind when I saw Sagrada Familia was it was overwhelmingly odd … in an oddly underwhelming  sort of way.  Go figure. To each his own, I guess.

Anyway, take a look at my photos below of the outside (we weren’t willing to spend $25 apiece to go inside), and then if you’d like a friendlier writeup about Sagrada Familia, as well as a 3D virtual walk-through, check out this web side here.

Coming tomorrow: Gaudí as “starchitect.” Stay tuned…