Monday 14 November 2022
We visited the incredible Sagrada Familia today. This world famous cathedral, still being built 140 years after its inception, is a masterpiece of design and craftsmanship. Gaudi worked on this for over 40 years, and exclusively for the last 12 years of his life until his untimely death in 1926 (he was run over by a tram). He left designs for the whole cathedral and the plan is to finish it on the centenary of his death in 4 years time.
The original design, by Francisco de Paula del Villar, followed the prevailing guidelines of the time, with neo-Gothic elements: ogival windows, buttresses, flying buttresses and a pointed bell tower. Gaudi significantly veered away from this creating a huge open cathedral, designed to be a forest of trees. The pillars literally branch out as they reach the canopy of the ceiling. And there are his much loved parabolic arches everywhere. He used to design upside-down, creating his work using string/chain hung from the ceiling (creating the natural arch shape he was after) rather than building a 3D model from the ground up.
Light pours in from all sides through magnificent stained glass windows.
We took a trip up one of the towers and saw many mosaic'ed pillars and carvings galore.
Everywhere there were beautiful designs, carefully and painstakingly executed.
We loved our visit there and I enjoyed the audio guide piped directly into my hearing aids whilst JC patiently waited for the crowds to clear so he could take his shots.
After lunch we headed for the former Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau. Designed by a Gaudi contemporary, Lluís Domènech i Montaner , he created a beautiful set of Arc Nouveau buildings.
The corridors in the administration building are stunning.
And I adored the art deco tiled piece here and the tiled ceilings.
The mosaics on the exterior walls were beautiful too.
The sun was setting so we headed back down towards the Sagrida for night time shots.
Once we'd had our fill of the Sagrada we headed home, detouring to take some photos of the Arc de Triomf. We found a local tapas bar and ordered. After a few minutes the waiter returned and said "we think you've ordered too much." It's sometimes a bit hard to gauge how much we should go for and it was helpful of them to prevent us over-stuffing ourselves!
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