From ed25a42074466fc43c4434bd13da06da1ca8e92f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Brian Picciano Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2018 17:00:45 -0400 Subject: added barcelona to next mr-worldwide post --- _drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md | 87 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 87 insertions(+) (limited to '_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md') diff --git a/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md b/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md index 71aed51..88592cb 100644 --- a/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md +++ b/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md @@ -380,3 +380,90 @@ with a ton of things left unseen, but without any regret about it. Italy itself had far too much for me to do in this trip, and I knew I'd be back one day, both to Italy and to Rome itself. On the third day I hopped on a plane, flew across the sea, and landed in Spain. + +## Barcelona, Spain + +Barcelona definitely made my list of favorite places I visited. Having come from +a city which didn't feel like much more than a playground for tourists, it was +refreshing to be in one which felt more real. Spaniards seemed to be friendlier +than Italians as well, and my hostel was filled with characters from the UK to +Brazil to Russia. + +There was an architect in Barcelona named Antoni Gaudí, who died in 1926, but +left an indelible impression on the city. If I hadn't known when he lived and +died I might have thought he founded the place, he's that ubiquitous. His style +is completely strange; his exteriors look like something out of Candy Land, +while the interiors seem to come from a utopian sci-fi. + +What blows my mind is that, for whatever reason, they let him build a church. + +La Sagrada Familia isn't actually completed yet. Gaudí took it over in 1883, a +year after it had been started, and worked on it until the day he died. He knew +he wouldn't live to see the completion of the project, and so laid out the plans +such that it could be completed without him. The church has been slowly +constructed using private funds and donations since then. + +
+{% include image.html + src="mr-worldwide/sagrada-familia-outside-2018-0.jpg" + inline=true + %} + +{% include image.html + src="mr-worldwide/sagrada-familia-outside-2018-1.jpg" + inline=true + %} +

Outside faces of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 2018

+
+ +The outside presents two faces, one a mishmash of sculpture which resembles +melting ice-cream and the other highly geometrical, both filled with biblical +scenes and small details. Neither really prepares you for what the inside will +be like. + +
+{% include image.html + src="mr-worldwide/sagrada-familia-inside-2018-0.jpg" + inline=true + %} +{% include image.html + src="mr-worldwide/sagrada-familia-inside-2018-1.jpg" + inline=true + %} +{% include image.html + src="mr-worldwide/sagrada-familia-inside-2018-2.jpg" + inline=true + %} +

The incredible interior of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 2018

+
+ +I'd been in a lot of churches and cathedrals up till this point. Even when they +were as mind blowing as Milan's Duomo, they all followed a similar pattern: +gothic, brooding, ornate, almost dark in a way. + +La Sagrada Familia is none of those things; it shirks the gothic style almost +completely, instead adopting one inspired by natural shapes and patterns. It +feels more like being under a canopy of trees than being in a building. There's +light, and color, and organic shapes, like the tree-trunk-like columns and the +flower ceiling. And yet there's also a geometric patterness to everything, which +hints at an order and intent for everything in sight, so your eye is drawn in +to investigate every detail without needing ornamentation to grab it. + +It's lucky that I hadn't made any other plans for that day, because I spent +nearly two hours at that church, walking around, taking it all in, sitting +and contemplating, holding back tears a lot of the time, not being successful at +it the rest. This might have been the first building I'd ever felt gratitude +for. Where the traditional catholic building has as a foundation a call to +authority, this one had a call to nature and humanity. And rather than being the +crackpot dream of a single person, it had been carried on and supported and +built by many others long after he had died. It was a reflection of an ongoing +change in a society which I was grateful to see. + +I left Barcelona with a new understanding of churches, and what they represent, +even for someone who's not catholic, and even for someone who's not christian. +They're a space that's been set aside with the fundamental purpose of sitting +quietly and thinking about things larger than oneself. Thinking about one's +place in society, or in nature, or in the universe, and thinking about how that +affects one's actions. Every society on earth has these spaces, though they go +by different names, and have lots of different decorations. Each one carries a +message about what that society has ascribed importance to. -- cgit v1.2.3