Posted on 11/07/2010 1:48:11 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Pope Benedict XVI is to visit the Spanish city of Barcelona to consecrate Antoni Gaudi's unfinished cathedral, the Sagrada Familia, as a basilica.
Gaudi's greatest work has been under construction for more than a century, and will not be finished before 2026.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
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Most of the Elegant churches are now closed. They just exist. The sad part is that they are in poor neighborhoods and could perhaps be used for winter shelters.
Yeah. I thought the same thing, until I looked it up in a couple of dictionaries.
Same here in MA. A lot of them are closing. What strikes me as particularly sad is that many of these glorious churches were built by poor, immigrant communities. Some of these churches now exist in wealthy, urban and suburban environments, and are being neglected.
They stand as a metaphor for our spiritually dessicated American church.
What do we do with them? I'm glad I'm not a bishop having to make those decisions.
The lower photo is the crypt, where they have been offering mass for years now, awaiting the opening of the upper church. I was looking for photos of the new upper church, but all I found was a short video of the Pope right at the altar, so I couldn’t really tell what it looks like. All I could see were the organ pipes (it seems to have a very impressive organ, I have to look up the maker).
Supposedly, however, the roof is an enameled leaf-like pattern with glass set into it. I have to go to Barcelona and see it now!
In college I asked my art history prof if we got the word gaudy from Gaudi. He didn’t think it was funny and said no.
Kinda Gaudi. ;’)
Thank you! Nice color in the windows! I like figurative art but, on the other hand, with windows that height, you probably couldn’t tell what they depicted anyway. But it looks great and I love the way they are set in.
I saw a projection on a foreign news site of the completed exterior (with the windows, galleries, etc.) which is not expected to be finished for another few years, and it looked like it had a band of color around the middle because of the different tiers of windows. I don’t know if this is actually what it will look like, but it was certainly interesting.
I love the building and I am really looking forward to seeing the interior.
And Gaudi (for the info of other Freepers, the stress is on the last syllable) seems to have been a very saintly person. He lived in a little room in the basement on a handful of raisins and other barely edible things a day, and prayed constantly. His whole life was about beauty and about the elevation of everything to art. That was the essence of the movement: that the individual artist was not important, but that the work that glorified God through its beauty was the important thing, and this could be a painting, or it could be a mosaic floor, or it could be a gold chalice or an embroidered vestment - or a building and that contributed by all its builders.
Antoni Gaudi sun mosaic, Park Güell, Barcelona
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