Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926), architect of the awesome basilica, Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, ... didn't think he was building Europe's last great Catholic cathedral. The Sagrada Família, he said, was the first of the new Christian era. He built it to speak to a post-industrial, secularised world, to heal the divide between faith and reason, truth and freedom, art and God; and to do so not through a restatement of the past but starting from creation itself.

We have long been familiar with the Sagrada's towers and facades, the way the building erupts from Barcelona's suburbs, reaching for the skies. But on the day it was consecrated, thanks to a spidercam deftly directed by the local television station, millions saw for the first time the recently-completed interior – a thrilling petrified forest of light, colour and space. The Basilica's modernity ... lies in the way Gaudí internalises what is usually left outside – plants, animals, nature – while putting on its outside what is normally confined within church walls: altarpieces and sculptures narrating the Christian salvation story.

In an age when "modern" art strains to reject and disconcert for its own sake, Gaudí's originality stands out as far more radical and authentic. Focussing intensely on the forms of nature, he discovered that true beauty lies in uncovering and being faithful to those forms, rather than striving after beauty, which results merely in artifice. Through dozens of 65ft-high tropical trunks rising up to a forest-like canopy through which the sun's rays pour and dance across the walls, the Sagrada's interior creates a heavenly vision of the New Jerusalem – not a ponderous, grandiloquent, statement of a powerful institution, but a glimpse of God, something free and light and generous and intensely beautiful, a space fit for soaring spirits.

Gaudí's own life is a very modern one. He ignored his ... faith until he was 42, by which time he was a famous and well-paid architect, something of a dandy courted by wealthy Barcelona industrialists to design their show-off houses. He was the leading light of the Catalan movement of arts and crafts known as the Renaixença, and knew he was far ahead of his generation. But he was knocked off course by being rejected by a woman he loved, and began to explore – in a very modern, considered way, in full knowledge of the alternatives – the beliefs in which he had until then shown little interest. Over the next 30 years, he shed his wealth, spent more and more time in prayer, gave up meat and alcohol, put his money into improving the lot of the poor of his barrio, and dedicated himself entirely to the Sagrada Família, convinced that God had called him to this great task. He died, after being run over by a tram, at age 72, a beloved pauper, lauded as genius and admired as a saint.

The Catholic church is now on its way to officially declaring him one, not because of his magnificent creation – although, of course, the Sagrada cannot be separated from his faith – but because of the evidence and fruits of a life geared to God. Unlike other geniuses such as Picasso (who loathed Gaudí for ideological reasons but was indebted to his art) or Mozart, Gaudí never burned out. He diligently worked on the basilica for over 40 years. He understood that artistic genius was a powerful gift, which led to a reckless ego; he actively compensated for that gift through penance and expiation, self-sacrifice and giving. Convinced that God is revealed first through His creation, his faith led his genius and technical prowess ever deeper into the origins of beauty, not away from them. At a time when technological progress leads to arrogance, Gaudí offers leaves and lizards, eggs and branches, and asks us to look again.

... Gaudí's great basilica, initiated in 1883 and projected to be completed between 2026 to 2030, had been funded exclusively by public donations, and now, mostly, from the entrance fees of 2.5 million visitors a year, more than any other tourist destinations within Spain.

The Sagrada Familia in numbers:

• • 14,000 people can fit inside the Sagrada Familia

  • 4500 m²

  • 170 metre high central tower dedicated to Jesus (the tallest religious building in the world)

  • 12 bells to represent the 12 apostles of Jesus

  • 120 metres long and 90 metres wide, the size of a football field

Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/nov/16/gaudi-sagrada-familia-cathedral-for-our-times

https://www.spain-holiday.com/Barcelona-city/articles/la-sagrada-familia-a-sacred-work-of-gaudi-in-barcelona

Discussion questions:

• 1. What have you learned or found interesting about Gaudi?

  2. Have you heard of the Sagrada Familia or seen pictures of it?

  3. Can you relate to Gaudi's love for nature? Or have you ever felt God's presence when looking at something in nature?

  4. What do you think Gaudi was trying to communicate when he was building this cathedral?