The Montjuic sandstones (March 5 post) that built, and rebuilt, Roman and
medieval Barcelona went on to play a starring role in the wonderful, eccentric,
stunning, creations of Antoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet. Barcelona and Gaudi
are inextricably linked, and a visit to the city feels in some ways like a
pilgrimage. This was my first visit (a return is necessary, having only sampled some of the highlights). Although I knew Gaudi's work, of course, from books, images,
and friends' descriptions, it remained distant and beyond my grasp - I had no
clear idea of what it really was. It's an architecture that can only be accessed
directly and personally, through touch as well as vision. And where to start on
this experience? Again like a pilgrimage, there is a compulsion to start with
the icon of Barcelona, Gaudi's
greatest and yet-unfinished masterpiece, the
Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia. I am no architectural expert,
and the details of the history and symbols of the Sagrada are easily available
elsewhere; I shall simply try to describe what fascinated me about the church,
and, indeed, all of Gaudi's creations - the inspiration, the materials, the
forms and the design. And I should make it clear that I don't approach the
Sagrada, or any church, through the eyes of religious faith, but rather through
the eyes of a faith in human nature, creativity, inspiration, capacity. And, of
course, through the eyes of a geologist.
Gaudi took over the building of the church in 1883, a year after it was
started as a conventional gothic design; he radicalized it, sculpting into
reality his extraordinary visions of naturally-inspired design, together with
the innovative construction techniques that these visions demanded. The
building became his passion; he lived and worked like a hermit within its
embryonic structure, designing, calculating, modeling, redesigning, and starting
over. When he died in 1926, run over by a tram, he was impoverished and unkempt,
unrecognized in the paupers' hospital to which he was taken. The church was
perhaps a quarter finished. The work continues today, made possible by the
capabilities of modern design software, the extraordinary creative skills of
today's craftsmen - and a continuing shared passion.
The Montjuic sandstone forms the bones and the flesh of the building,
providing, together with sculptures from its cousins in Lleida to the west of
Barcelona, the flowing organic forms of the Nativity Façade (right) and the
glowing, soaring structure of the Passion Façade
(left) - appropriately named
even by the secular use of the word. But the quarries on Montjuic were closed
many decades ago, and the stone, even recycled, is scarce. For some elements of
the structure, specialty concrete is used, the sand content carefully selected
to harmonize with the natural sandstone; this has been controversial, vigorously
condemned by the purists - who choose to ignore the fact that Gaudi himself was
using reinforced concrete for some of the early construction, since the stresses
and strains some of the radical design elements necessitated its use. In today's
project, the methods used are on the cutting edge of concrete design and
construction.
The Sagrada is nothing but curves, light, colour, and space, made possible
only by Gaudi's creativity and his seemingly intuitive grasp of the mathematics
of form. The columns, inspired by the structure of trees, vary in form according
to their position and role; their shapes twist and counter-twist in ways that it
took considerable effort by modern minds (and computers) to understand. They are
cored by reinforced concrete and faced with natural stone - the Montjuic,
together with basalts and granites. The interior is staggering, quite literally
awe-inspiring (below). But, as I have already said, photographs don't do it -
you have to be there, feel the place for yourself.
The Montjuic sandstone is joined for some of the interior elements by
Scottish sandstone from the Clashach quarries on the Moray Firth. A "New Red"
sandstone from the desert dunes of the Permian Period, some 250 million years
ago, it is famous for its preservation of the tracks of ancient (and doomed)
reptiles, all very geologically different from the Montjuic. But the two are
similar in important ways. The Clashach sandstone had been used during
refurbishment of Barcelona's old cathedral, and came to the attention of the
Sagrada architects because of its similar appearance to the Montjuic, the warmth
of its colour, its texture, and its durability. Its distinctive character has
also led to its being featured in the British Memorial Garden to 9/11 victims
in New York's Hanover Square.
I could add much more on the glorious design, the materials, and the
fascination of the place, but enough - if you haven't seen it, you must. The
Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia is a temple - to creativity,
inspiration, passion, and skill.
After the Sagrada, a break to catch the breath, a non-Gaudi interlude, is
recommended. But then go to his other icons, those of domestic architecture, the
Casa Mila and the Casa Batlló. The first has also been named "La Pedrera," the
stone quarry, and the second, the "House of Bones," reflecting perceptions of
the character of their design. The quarry in question for Casa Mila is in
Vilafranca del Penedes, and it provided the Catalonian limestones for the
façade; the undulating form of that facade (below) has stimulated much
metaphorical hypothesizing with respect to its inspiration - ocean waves, desert
dunes, and the sculpted weathered sandstone terrain around the
monastery of Montserrat, northwest of Barcelona, are among the most popular. And
then, on the extraordinary roof terrace, appear the strange forms of the
chimneys that were said to be the inspiration for Darth Vader and his
troops......
But to return to Gaudi and his beloved Montjuic sandstone, a visit to the
Casa Batlló is needed. The existing building was completely redesigned by Gaudi,
essentially straight out of his imagination; its almost hallucinatory façade
(the yawns or the bones) is inspired by St. George, the patron saint of
Catalonia, and, more immediately, the dragon (left). There are no straight lines
in the flowing sandstone of the facade - or any where else in the building, for
that matter. Every detail was designed by Gaudi, down to the window handles and
each piece of stained glass, each tile, every idiosyncrasy. Every individual
element of Gaudi's design is fascinating and unique; sometimes, in juxtaposition
en masse, they become overwhelming.
But the curves and the flow and the outrageousness of the designs are
compelling, each often personally evocative of those endless metaphors of
natural forms. At the Sagrada was a small exhibition with examples of natural
architecture that appear in Gaudi's designs - trees, leaves, spirals, the
Fibonacci series, twinned crystals, and weathered landscapes. Tafoni (my 22
February post) were strangely not included, but they should be. Below are
two examples, the gates of the entrance to La Pedrera and the façade of the Casa
Batlló - for the latter, when I took the image of tafoni in the Santa Cruz
Mountains of California (credit below) and simply overlaid it on the facade of
the House of Bones, I admit that my jaw dropped.
And Salvador Dali described the modernist architecture, and that of Gaudi in
particular, as "the patisserie of Barcelona", so I will end with one final
metaphor.
[all photographs are my own, except for the image of tafoni in the El Corte
de Madera Creek by Vicki and Chuck Rogers, creative commons license, http://www.flickr.com/photos/two-wrongs/104484095/in/set-516287/]