Travel writers have described Sagrada Familia’s Nativity Façade as if “Someone left the cake out in the rain.” Borrowing a term from Jimmy Webb’s MacArthur Park.  Webb, in turn took the line from WH Auden who said his lined face looked like a wedding cake that someone left out in the rain.  The phrase describes the dripping fluid stonework and ornamentation of the façade fairly accurately.  James Mitchner called it one of the strangest looking serious buildings in the world.

Antoni Gaudi dedicated the last 43 years of his life to constructing the Basilica. Francisco Paula del Villar was the first architect.  He envisioned a neo-Gothic church.  He started in 1882 but quit a year later.  When Gaudi took over some work had been done on the crypt.  He blew up the original plans while still building on that foundation.  He wanted to create a building that was Gothic in style but Art Nouveau/Modernism in feel.

According to the film shown in the museum in the crypt he concentrated on the Nativity Facade because if he got that done it would be difficult to change the direction of the work. When he died in 1926, only 20% of the building was complete. He realized he would not complete the building in his lifetime. “My client (God) is not in a hurry.” He also realized that architects that followed would add their own touches and flourishes, that was fine with him. His concentration on the Facades was part of his belief that the statues and story line of the church be told outside, inside the church would be a forest of light and shadow as I showed you in my previous blog.

Like ancient Gothic Cathedrals Sagrada Familia take over a century to build.  Work was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War.  In 1936 anarchist and anti-clerical revolutionaries broke into Gaudi’s workshop, burned blueprints and drawings and smashed three-dimensional models that Gaudi had made.  Gaudi preferred to work from models rather than flat prints. 

In future years architects tried to piece together the smashed models from photos.   In later years aeronautical design software and 3D printing were used to reconstruct some of the models.  The model workshop is in the crypt, behind glass but visible to the public.

We highly recommend that if you ever have the opportunity to visit Barcelona, Spain that you visit La Sagrada Familia.

It is breathtaking!

On the outside and on the inside.

Thanks for traveling with us.