I expected La Sagrada Familia to be breathtaking. It turns out to be way way way more amazing than I have ever imagined. The guidebooks say it was designed to look like a tall forest. But the place is amazing for a lot of reasons.
For one, it embodies a design aesthetic that is impossible to find anywhere else. If you think Frank Gehry is revolutionary and out of the box or whatever, well, let me tell you completely objectively that Gehry could not be Gaudi's toilet attendant. Gaudi just bucks so many norms for a religious building, or any building, that it's impossible to do him justice.
For another, Gaudi makes religion actually welcoming. The place is so well-lit and contemplative and interesting that it invites a completely different way of thinking about religion and one's place in the universe. No wonder that there'd be molestation scandals in churches with dark corners; one cannot imagine anything of the kind inside the Sagrada Familia.
Finally, it takes a different kind of approach to start a project with a 140-year time span. A normal building gets built to specifications within a finite budget. Whereas a 140-year project essentially has an infinite budget. You can think big, and do something really different when your budget is so large. And most architects would crumble under such lack of constraints. Most engineers would be unable to function without a cost constraint. It takes someone with amazing vision to design a building whose completion the designer will never live to see.
Anyhow, here are the pics.
For one, it embodies a design aesthetic that is impossible to find anywhere else. If you think Frank Gehry is revolutionary and out of the box or whatever, well, let me tell you completely objectively that Gehry could not be Gaudi's toilet attendant. Gaudi just bucks so many norms for a religious building, or any building, that it's impossible to do him justice.
For another, Gaudi makes religion actually welcoming. The place is so well-lit and contemplative and interesting that it invites a completely different way of thinking about religion and one's place in the universe. No wonder that there'd be molestation scandals in churches with dark corners; one cannot imagine anything of the kind inside the Sagrada Familia.
Finally, it takes a different kind of approach to start a project with a 140-year time span. A normal building gets built to specifications within a finite budget. Whereas a 140-year project essentially has an infinite budget. You can think big, and do something really different when your budget is so large. And most architects would crumble under such lack of constraints. Most engineers would be unable to function without a cost constraint. It takes someone with amazing vision to design a building whose completion the designer will never live to see.
Anyhow, here are the pics.
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| Apparently, Gaudi inspired the design of Stormtrooper helmets |
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| You tell me |
1 comment:
There were no computer modeling at the time of Gaudi. The best part was to see his original hand drawn sections for the building and the power of his imagination.
What is being built and designed now is fully computerized - Conceptual designs are being born in the computers which goes all the way to construction. It is not what your mind allows - it is what your mind allows and computer knowledge allows....
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