Sagrada Familia

Described as Gaudi's "magnum opus," this Catholic church, dubbed a basilica by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, dominates the skyline from afar and is the most-visited site in Barcelona. We jumped on the bandwagon and took a tour. In the tradition of so many soaring churches, it's taking a long time to build: 120 years and counting...see all the cranes? Several architects have made their own contributions to the basic design conceived by Gaudi, and in my opinion it works nicely. The church will ultimately have three facades featuring stages in the life of Jesus: (1) nativity (done by Gaudi), (2) passion (recently completed by a different architect), and (3) glory (still under construction and not open for viewing). A few pictures:

 Approaching the church.

 An exterior shot that is of none of he facades but siding. Note the snakes and lizards slithering down the around the windows.

 Passion facade from afar.

Passion facade from right below.

 One of many sculptures on the passion facade depicting events in the last days of Jesus' life. This may look like lovers embracing, but it is actually Judas kissing Jesus (see the snake?). What appears to be a magic square at lower left is in fact a cryptogram invented by the architect that contains a number of combinations that add to 33, the age of Jesus at the time of the crucifixion.

 Another sculpture on the passion facade. I like that he's sticking his sword into the wall.

Interior of the church. The inside is supposed to look like a forest.

 Mordu demonstrating the width of the columns.

 As you can see, not all the stained glass windows have been "filled in."

 Another interior shot.

 Interior shot looking upwards. The ceiling is meant to evoke a forest canopy.

 Nativity facade.

 Close-up of the nativity facade.

This is a model made by Gaudi for another church that was never built. Gaudi loved to use the catenary shape -- the natural arc of a hanging wire. If you look carefully, you will see that this model is made of lots of wires weighted by tiny sandbags so that they fall in the arcs chosen by the architect. The hanging model is up-side-down; the base of the proposed church is at the top of the frame.