KULTURA / CULTURE
GAUDÍ’S BARCELONA A century of wonder on the roof of the Sagrada Familia Marking a hundred years since the departure of this genius, the capital of Catalonia is experiencing a historical catharsis: the completion of the tallest tower and the recapitulation of the opus of a man who translated the geometry of nature into stone W hen you disembark from the Air Ser- bia plane onto the baking asphalt of Catalonia in July, you will feel a different vibe than usu- al in the air of Barcelona. That’s be- cause of the completion of a historical circle of precisely 100 years. This sum- mer marks the centenary of the depar- ture from this world of the inimitable Antoni Gaudí, the man who rejected the straight lines of rulers because they don’t exist in nature. His June 1926 death was quiet and tragic. He was run over by a tram on the rails of a Barcelona street, and his modest clothing meant that no- body recognised the genius architect whose works had changed the face of the city. A century on, Barcelona cele- brates his immortal triumph. Under the
slogan „Momentum 3“, the city pulsates throughout with exhibitions and con- certs, while the real spectacle is happen- ings where the earth meets the sky, on the roof of the Sagrada Familia basilica. The birth of a temple and the laws of a stone forest For generations of travellers, the eternal symbol of Barcelona was the scaffolding embracing this unusual ca- thedral, the construction of which be- gan in 1882, under the guidance of ar- chitect Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano. Gaudí would take the helm a year later and completely reject the original plan for a cold, neo-gothic ed- ifice. He didn’t like the heavy exter- nal support columns, which he deroga- torily dubbed “building crutches”, and instead came up with a revolutionary idea: a self-supporting system of inter-
nal columns that branch out at an an- gle, distributing the weight directly in- to the ground. He drew inspiration from the struc- tures of trees. The interior of the church was designed as a monumental stone forest of volcanic basalt and granite. If you enter the basilica on a late after- noon in July, you will experience the magic consciously calculated by the ar- chitect: the summer sun streaming through stained glass windows – in cool blue tones to the east and bright, fiery orange to the west, transforming the in- terior into a living forest bathed in light that seems otherworldly. With finishing of the monumen- tal Tower of Jesus Christ, his great- est vision was finally completed. At 172.5 metres tall, crowned by a giant glass and ceramic cross that glistens in the bright sunlight, this tower offi-
42 | Arhitektura » Architecture
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator