A juggling busker works hard during red lights
at a busy morning intersection.
Today we went to Sagrada Familia.
Antonio Gaudi's incomplete dream, still being constructed after a hundred years.
The cathedral is breathtaking.
There is an audible gasp as you round the corner and view her.
It rivals the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum, and I dare say any other building of significance in the world.
Construction began in 1882, and is expected to be completed in in 2026, 144 years.
In the basement below the church are amazing plaster models of his ideas, all based around the use of hyperboloids, which at the time revolutionised building design and added elegance and strength to his constructions.
Consider the exterior of the Sagrada again, and remember that five more spires are yet to be built, with the final main central one, half as high again as the existing spires.
Its shape dominates the Barcelona skyline.
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And then there's Casa Batllo, another of Gaudi's stunning creations. It stands in the main street of Barcelona, and you know when you're there, because standing on the footpath are hundreds of people, craning their necks and cameras skyward, in awe of this mosaic fantasy.
Wendy and I pay our money and enter. We are instantly filled with what I remember of Stendhal Syndrome.
The house was built as a private residence and pays homage to Gaudi's
belief in the majesty of nature.
I am amazed at his ability to construct something as monolithic and inherently reverent and serene as the Sagrada Familia, but then temper his design aspirations to be aware of the intimacy required for a family home.
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And to round it off, we head up to the foothills behind Barcelona, to another of Gaudi's dreams, that of a walled housing estate called Parc Guell, where the inhabitants could roam through gardens and parks, entertain in a columned forum, stroll around market squares a build beautiful houses for their privileged lives.
Gaudi designed gate houses and elevated walkways and had incorporated reticulated water systems.
You get the feeling Gaudi was a genius, but born a hundred years too soon.
A man who devoted his life to science, architecture, design and his God.
Barcelona is all about Antonio Gaudi.
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