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| The Sydney Opera House |
Being a Sydney boy, I’ve always felt privileged to hail from a city that can boast a building as wonderful, iconic and unique as the Sydney Opera House. I remember always doing my best to take the bridge rather than the tunnel as I crossed the harbour on the way to work each day, just to get a glimpse of it.
Of course during the
last 15 years, I’ve only had the opportunity to lay eyes on Jørn Utzon’s
masterpiece once in a while and then only as a visitor to Sydney-town, which
always left me feeling a little wanting – I suppose removed.
But now that I am a
resident of Barcelona, that privileged feeling has returned.You see, I’m lucky
enough to get to see Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família church just about every
day, usually as I walk the dog through the two parks on either side of it.
I’m not exactly sure if
I’ve yet worked out just what grabs about it: it’s impressive bulk, that somehow
makes it look tall and squat at the same time; the schizophrenia of the styles
of the two main facades – the gothic and naturalist of the “Nativity” or the angular
and austere of the “Passion” (it's probably a little controversial to say this,
but the Passion is my favorite – there’s just too much on the Nativity side for
me to take in); the wonderful ceramic “fruit-bowls” that adorn the sharp peaks
of the buttress; the glimmering tiles that clad the spires, the lizards and
snakes clinging to the outside walls of the radiating chapel; or the simple
fact that just when you think you see a part of it that seems “cathedrally”
conventional, you look again and see that it is anything but.
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| The Passion facade - my favourite |
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| The "fruit bowls" |
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| The glimmering towers |
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| The lizards and snakes clinging to the walls |
Not that everyone is a fan of the Sagrada Família. A very good friend of mine visiting from Madrid told me in no uncertain terms that he didn’t like anything about it. And others, perhaps more versed in art and architecture than him have labeled it vulgar, pretentious, a circus attraction, even “the most blatant mass of half-digested moderniste clichés”. Even Cataluña-loving George Orwell, having seen the building while he was fighting with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, called it “one of the most hideous buildings in all the world”.
I do get why it is polarizing (I think my description above of what I like it is explanation enough of why others might not) but I have to say I fall firmly on the side of those who love it. And then there is the inside.
If you’re ever in
Barcelona and tempted to be satisfied with viewing the Sagrada Família just
from the outside, resist. Do yourself a favour, brave the crowds and go inside
(book your entrance online so you won’t need to line up in a queue that sometimes just about wraps around the
entire block).
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| A forest of geometric wonder |
I only saw the inside for the first time a few months ago (it was still a building site when I first came to see it in 2000) and it made my jaw drop. The sheer height of the vaults (60 meters in parts), the imposing columns of sandstone, granite, basalt and porphyry, clearly reminiscent of a forest of giant trees complete with branches and the magnificent geometric detail of the ceiling are just some of the highlights for me.
I also love the
back-story of the place: the important Modernista
(Art Nouveau) outbuilding that was the school Gaudi built
for the children of his workers; the way Gaudi captured the forms and flows of
nature for his designs using shapes suspended with string and viewed in a
mirror (you can clearly see the results of that in the design of the anterior);
the fact that anarchists during the Spanish Civil War burned many of Gaudi’s
designs and they had to be re-created via photographs and (later)
computer-aided design; or, as an engineer friend of mine visiting from
Australia explained to me not long ago, that Gaudi was so far ahead of his time
that we’ve had to wait for engineering technology to catch up with some of his plans in
order to actually build them!
So yes, I do feel very privileged to be able to enjoy this building every day, even if only for (or perhaps because of) the mundane reality that the dog needs to have a walk and do his business. And I look forward to returning one day in or after 2026 to see it completed – although I imagine I’ll find it a little odd minus all the cranes that are the only way I’ve ever known it and that have become, for me, part of the building.
So yes, I do feel very privileged to be able to enjoy this building every day, even if only for (or perhaps because of) the mundane reality that the dog needs to have a walk and do his business. And I look forward to returning one day in or after 2026 to see it completed – although I imagine I’ll find it a little odd minus all the cranes that are the only way I’ve ever known it and that have become, for me, part of the building.
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| These days, for me at least, the cranes are part of the Sagrada Família |
In the meantime, thanks to the wonder of computer animation, we can get
a glimpse into that future. Check out the video below:
