I got up early and was dreading waiting in vain at sagrada familia. The online tickets were somehow sold out last night but when I checked again in the morning I got a ticket. Give me an inch, I take a mile. Outside the church were Koreans, Japanese and Chinese tourists... the only tourists willing to wake up early on New Year’s Day. I spend time in a park across from the sagrada familia, attempting to take the perfect photo of the church but pay more attention to a smoking bocce player to my side.
When I finally entered the church I asked if there were any cancellations for the tower ascent since they were all sold out online. To my surprise there was a spare ticket. As I was leaving, a woman came by to purchase two tower tickets but she didn’t have a credit card to purchase it. She looked and sounded distressed. I started walking away but then I let her use my credit card.. she paid me euros. A random act of kindness because god let me take a tour of the tower and inside the church today. Going up the tower there are no backpacks allowed. By the entry is a row of coin operated lockers. Of course I got rid of all my coins yesterday to shed weight. I would have to go outside to get coins and come back. At that point the security guard offered to lend me a euro to use the locker. She joked to her friend her McDonalds breakfast would have to wait. I told her it was karma. I helped a woman buy tickets a few moments ago, and now the guard helped me.
The elevator takes you up 65 meters up the southeast tower. You then follow 400 steps down weaving between spires in the process. I mention to the guard that the Eiffel Tower ascent to the first base is 392 steps... so comparable to the ascent I was about to make. The lookout platforms are near the top with this open mesh guardrails. From the top, you can see the colorful tops of the spires and the city of Barcelona rolling to the sea beyond. Only 1 guardrail winds down the spire stair along the exterior wall. The inside of the stair is open to an abyss of a hole one could fall 65 meters down.
I held the stair railing tight. Every so often, a scupper drain interrupted the steps, or a meshed window punctuated the path providing illumination. Momentarily I would put my life at risk for a stupid picture, then proceed down again. When I exited the stair and entered the nave dizzy from spiraling down the narrow spire, the light was now steaming through the stained glass windows. Arranged in gradient opacities with more opaque panels on the bottom... and translucent on top, the church felt extremely light. The columns followed funicular pathways and intersect at lit orb-like nodes. The pathways were determined by hanging weights with chains. Gaudi used this method of structural analysis to make sure all the compression loads of the masonry structure were directed to the ground. The effect of the branching columns and dappled colored light streaming into the church was like light coming through the leaves in the canopy of the forest. The natural feeling of the church was further reinforced with the shapes of some of the columns. They looked like the trajectory of helicoid leaf plant growth frozen in stone. At the tops of some of the spires were natural forms like shells and fruit or the 4 sided cross of a cypress seed cone. The hyperbolic paraboloid geometries of the window edges and ceiling vaults allowed more light in and spread sound waves out. Symmetrical in nature like a complex organism one could see many organic forms emerging from the surfaces of the church. I would later find out from the original gaudi models that gaudi worked with plaster models. This must have been a laborious complex process to make the formwork to cast these forms. The architects of the church are aiming to finish the construction of the church on 2026 —the 100 year anniversary of gaudi’s death. Today, the design process is aided by 3D computer modeling and 3D printing.
I held the stair railing tight. Every so often, a scupper drain interrupted the steps, or a meshed window punctuated the path providing illumination. Momentarily I would put my life at risk for a stupid picture, then proceed down again. When I exited the stair and entered the nave dizzy from spiraling down the narrow spire, the light was now steaming through the stained glass windows. Arranged in gradient opacities with more opaque panels on the bottom... and translucent on top, the church felt extremely light. The columns followed funicular pathways and intersect at lit orb-like nodes. The pathways were determined by hanging weights with chains. Gaudi used this method of structural analysis to make sure all the compression loads of the masonry structure were directed to the ground. The effect of the branching columns and dappled colored light streaming into the church was like light coming through the leaves in the canopy of the forest. The natural feeling of the church was further reinforced with the shapes of some of the columns. They looked like the trajectory of helicoid leaf plant growth frozen in stone. At the tops of some of the spires were natural forms like shells and fruit or the 4 sided cross of a cypress seed cone. The hyperbolic paraboloid geometries of the window edges and ceiling vaults allowed more light in and spread sound waves out. Symmetrical in nature like a complex organism one could see many organic forms emerging from the surfaces of the church. I would later find out from the original gaudi models that gaudi worked with plaster models. This must have been a laborious complex process to make the formwork to cast these forms. The architects of the church are aiming to finish the construction of the church on 2026 —the 100 year anniversary of gaudi’s death. Today, the design process is aided by 3D computer modeling and 3D printing.
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