125 years after construction on this giant masterpiece in Barcelona began, an influential group of Spanish artists, architects and art gallery directors are increasingly concerned the result will bear little resemblance to Gaudí's original vision of an architectural homage to God. The Guardian
4 Comments
Even if Gaudi rose from death to direct the project, it still would not be Gaudi enough.
actually the only way to make it be 'more Gaudí' would be precisely to resuscitate him... but he wouldn't like it 'cause before he left he already told he wanted this to be like a gothic cathedral where project directors appeared and disappeared one after the other, with barely any instruction traspassed from one to another (except for the 'general' idea of the building).. and, the gothics, when some info where left, the new master builder would just do whatever they want, according to the changing architectural fashions: from early gothic to late gothic, etc-
no one said this had to be a 'Gaudí building'... not even Gaudí himself.
ah, but I think most present work on the building is ridiculous... if it has to be continued, do like the gothics did: use contemporary design -just like you're using contemporary construction technology and computers for the ruled surfaces instead of Gaudí's plaster scale models-... - let's do an international competition and see what could be done with the Catalan temple (including a proposal for a change of function, cause no one does catholic churches anymore... according to the extremely lower percentage of people who go to mass, it makes no sense to do this in the 21th ct)
maybe THAT's why we still build churches in the 21st century to reverse this trend? ;)
well, I think it's a lost battle for the catholic community, wether they like it or not... for most people, the Sagrada stands as a touristic icon, an architectural stravaganza, not a religious one
these local catalan architects complaining about the works on the temple have more of an ideological problem with the continuators.. there's some politics involved in this confrontation: the ones that are in charge of the temple are linked with CiU, which is the main Catalan center-right party, and the ones complaining are more or less around the socialist/green parties, PSC/IC...
then there are others like me who think it's an obsolete building (as a piece of utilitarian architecture, not as a tourist attraction), but who don't care much if they try to end it... as I think Gaudí did some things much more interesting than this, and those are Gaudí 100% - Guell Park, Batlló House, Milà House, Colonia Guell crypt -also infinished and with another polemical restoration-, etc
but I do have a problem with the enormous, huge cross that will preside over the main spire, 170 m tall... that is incongruent with the present times, me thinks... it will be a cross representing something like, maybe around 10% of the population?... that's absurd, plastically horrendous and unproportioned -even if Gaudí designed it with his own hands-, and could even be offensive for other religions in Barcelona -including us, agnostics and atheists-
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