Gaudi not Gaudy

Today is Cheryl’s birthday!   As she wouldn’t let me buy her something extravagant earlier in our trip, she had to settle for two birthday cards I drug from home.   I thought they’d do something special for her tonight at dinner as I think I let them know when I registered us that it was a special day for her today.  

Alas, we finished dinner – a barbeque on deck . .  .in the rain – and nothing special other than the strange man greeting us in our room upon our return!

Our day began with docking in Barcelona around 9:30 a.m., and we spent our morning doing a whole lot of nothing before we headed off for our tour “World of Gaudi” about 1:15 p.m..   Suffice it to say that I hadn’t heard of Gaudi before today (can you say “Ugly American”?) but I should’ve.   This master architect from Spain worked around the turn of the century (he died in 1926) and produced many sites on the UN World Heritage list of sites that are, indeed, world treasurers.  Eight of his works are in Barcelona.

Our tour today took us to two of them, and on the way there we were clued into Barcelona being an architectural dream in many dimensions.  The streets are very wide, tree-lined, and everywhere you look there’s something to see, including a monstrous statue of Christopher Columbus as well as a Roy Lichtenstein sculpt which Cheryl recognized immediately as a quasi-Brushstrokes-in-Flight-Part-2.   Made me wonder if it was Barcelona was the city that Buck Rinehart was trying to bestow the Brushstrokes now found in the Columbus Airport (and priceless it is!).

The first Gaudi site we were taken to was the Basilica De La Sagrada Familia – the Basilica of the Holy Family.  Pretty tough to compare churches with each other, but if this one isn’t the most spectacular, awe inspiring one on the planet, I’m not sure what is.  It has been being built for the past 130 years, and is in the final push to have it ready for the centennial of Gaudi’s passing in 2026.

Four massive towers are in place today, and will eventually number 18 – 12 for the apostles, 4 for the evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), and 2 for Mary and Jesus.   The tallest today is about 107 meters, and the one to be built to honor Jesus will be 173 meters! 

The building is funded primarily from tourist admissions fees as well as donations – no government money is involved.   The last phase of the building involves tearing down a block of apartments across the street from what will be the main entrance, a plan agreed to from the very beginning of the project.

Many of the interior windows are simple glass at this point, and will eventually become stained glass which is installed in some of the windows.  The exterior façade is comprised of many, beautiful statues including as shown the wise men adoring the Baby Jesus.   This side was the beginning and the other was the end, including the Judas kiss and crucifixion.   Magnificent, spectacular, awe inspiring – if you couldn’t feel the presence of God after seeing this, there’s no hope for you.

We hated to leave the presence of such magnificence and, frankly, I would’ve been fine with the tour ending right there.   But it was not to be as we went a few blocks away and visited a Gaudi-designed apartment building known as “La Pedrera”.  It was extremely unique and illustrated Gaudi’s love of curved surfaces, beginning with the rooftop design where the tour started.  It is said to have served as inspiration for George Lucas’ design of the storm trooper uniforms and Darth Vader’s helmet in “Star Wars” and you can certainly detect those types of lines. (Hope that’s the right terminology as I’m a radiographer, not an architect!)

Today the building is owned by a bank but still includes apartments in it where people live.  The inside was beautifully done with delicately curved moldings, beautiful parquet floors, and the like.  One very interesting feature was the upper level which featured very thin arches in all the corridors which were originally the servant’s quarters and chambers.

Tomorrow we go to the Old Market in Barcelona.  For me, this is the most beautiful city I’ve ever been in, right up there with Paris.   I’ll be back to you later with more from the birthplace of the art noveau movement – Barcelona, Spain!