In January 2017 I wrote several posts about the amazing Sagrada Familia which I visited with my daughter on a mother/daughter holiday to Barcelona in October 2016. A most wonderful trip even if it was quite exhausting!
On 11 July 2010, the Sagrada Familia was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI and elevated to the status of a basilica. It is not, as some assume, a cathedral as it is without a bishop’s headquarters. But the huge dimensions of the interior is worthy of that status.
Stepping inside the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is like stepping into an enchanted forest. Tall trees towering above us; their branches creating a canopy. The streams of coloured light; the verticality and the enormous, seemingly empty space takes your breath away. At first I didn’t know what to look at, where to begin the tour, what to focus my camera on. Double-storey height windows flood the space with a light never before seen within a church.
The nave is a sight to behold. A work of mathematical genius with natural light flooding in through clear glass leaded panels to allow as much light in as possible.
The columns are modelled after a forest and form a light canopy of palm leaves.
I’m not going to go into all the symbolism of the basilica, you can find that out for yourself, instead I shall just let you have a look at some of the bits that caught my eye and where I could actually get a shot without dozens of people in the way.
The apse contains the altar, but this section was being worked on so we couldn’t get too close. Your eyes are drawn to the dramatic suspended crucifixion with a large ‘parachute’ dome from which artificial grape bunches and wheat stalks hang as symbols of the Eucharist, in which wine and bread are consecrated as religious symbols.
The main access bronze door that Josep M. Subirachs created for the Glory façade is a masterpiece of using typography as art.
The centre of the Prayer Door is inscribed with the Lord’s Prayer in Catalan with relief letters, and highlights the fragment ‘Give us, o Lord, our daily bread‘ (Translation from original Catalan: ‘el nostre pa de cada dia doneu-nos-el avui‘) and 49 other languages
The greens, blues, yellows and reds of the light coming through Joan Vila Grau’s stained-glass windows form shifting patterns of light and colour across the stone. Gaudí left several documents explaining how the stained glass windows should be arranged in order to achieve a symphony of evocative light and colour.
Gaudí said that colour was the expression of life.
The stained-glass features modern geometric shapes are sometimes overlaid with the names of saints. The windows on the lower part of the side aisles are brightly coloured, whereas those on the upper half are in lighter, almost translucent colours.
The windows on the Façade of the Passion, which are dedicated to water, light and the Resurrection are mostly blues, yellows and greens.
The windows on the Nativity façade allude to the birth of Christ, poverty and life and are mostly reds and yellow.
A pretty clam-shell font containing holy water rests on curved wrought-iron supports. Everything here is considered,
even the curve of a spiral staircase leading to the upper floors.
The basilica is a continuing work of art; the culmination of many years by many talented architects, sculptors and master craftsmen following Gaudí’s instructions. You could spend countless hours, days, even years studying the details of the Familia Sagrada and still not discover everything about it.
One has to wonder what Gaudí himself would think about it today? And what does it now represent?
This post is a contribution to Fandango’s Flashback Friday. Have you got a post you wrote in the past on this particular day? The world might be glad to see it – either for the first time – or again if they’re long-time loyal readers.
TRAVEL WORDS 
This is simply fabulous, Jude! Just on my phone right now but I’ll come back for a proper look later. 😁💕💕 You might consider doing something similar for Hospital de San Pau. The first time I saw the clam shell font was the Cathedral at Coimbra and I loved them. 💕💕
Thought you would enjoy this one Jo. All your squares in one post! That font is a delight, I’d love one – it would make a fabulous basin in the shower room.
Just about to pop in from my laptop. How would I get through 31 skwares otherwise? 🙂 🙂
As Jo says, this is fabulous. La Sagrada Familia seems to have given the Squares community a lot of material this month, but this exhaustive tour is great. I’m with Jo, take us to Santa Pau again next! And then I can pretend I’m in Barcelona with my little family 😦
Not sure I have a post on the hospital that coincides with a Friday, but I could cheat…
You can cheat, Jude!
I shall!
Good!
I think so. It’s not as if it matters. The point is to give a post from the Good Old Days another airing.
Very true.
That stained glass is something else!
It truly is. Will I get back to see the finishes article I wonder? I shall be getting (a bit more) doddery by then!
Well, will it ever be completed??
Supposed to be 2026, though that date may well have slipped now.
I’m sure
You did an excellent job documenting this idiosyncratic building. And good for you for including the accents in the Catalan; you’re probably aware that most English speakers don’t even know such a language exists, much less that it has more native speakers than Danish, Finnish, or Norwegian.
Glad you enjoyed it Steve.
So much more of the Sagrada Família has been built since 1985, when I visited it during the six weeks I spent in Barcelona that summer. When they’ll manage to finish it is anyone’s guess.
Six weeks is a nice length of time, though I believe Barcelona improved a lot for the 1992 Olympics.
Amazing photos. Thank you for sharing!
A pleasure.
Nos. 5 and 7 are my favourites, and that glowing golden one of the ceiling 🙂 🙂
You and Jo make me realise how much I have missed by not visiting Barcelona! Yet – I have to cling on to ‘yet” asa concept.
Such an unusual and impressive building. Despite seeing it a few times, I have never been inside. I hope to rectify that one day.
Best wishes, Pete. x
Fantastic photographs.
Thank you 😊
You and Jo and Becky are making me want to put Barcelona at the top of my wish list for travel. Simply marvelous!
janet
It is a great city, so much to see and easy to get around, but very busy in summer with large crowds at the famous sites. Autumn is a good time to go.