Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia: the Joy of Creation

 

We recently went on vacation to Barcelona, Spain with our London family.  We stayed at a hotel in Sitges, just south of the city of Barcelona.  The main tourist attraction in Barcelona is the church of the Holy Family, Sagrada Familia.

 

The original construction of the church in 1882 was under the direction of Architect Francisco de Paula del Villar.  However in 1883 Antoni Gaudí (b. 1852) took over the project transforming it to his architectural design and engineering style. The church is not yet finished and is still under construction.  It survived the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and the Fascists and the religiously conservative regime of Francisco Franco.  Gaudí died on June 10, 1926.  The construction of the church passed into the hands of several different architects, holding to the same theme and design.  Gaudí’s design of the church is Catalan Modernist. 

Sagrada Familia is a welcoming and inspiring structure.  Churches of the past, Romanesque to Rococo, were refuges, protecting the faithful from devils in the struggle for redemption after the fall of Adam.  Sagrada Familia celebrates nature as joyful revelation in stone.  The struggle of life is not denied. The passion of the Sagrada Familia is recognized, but in the context of the joy of creation.  

Walking in the sanctuary worshipers experience an explosion of light, on one side the beams of dawn, the other side the brilliance of sunset.  

Standing in the plaza outside the church one sees the spires as a grove of trees, of different sizes and species.  

Sagrada Familia inspires us to save the sacred earth. 

“God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

Resources

Original Blessing, Matthew Fox, Bear and Company, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1983.