A highlight of the recent Fahrt to Barcelona was the visit to La Segrada Familia - the iconic, unfinished basilica which I first noticed while trying to text-wrap round an image of its towers for the school's entry in a newspaper competition. We ran a school trips section, and this particular photo taxed my fairly rudimentary skills with Pagemaker. But the jumble of towers and cranes seen from the streets of Barcelona give little indication of what is inside.
I'm used to gloom and relative silence inside the ecclesiastical buildings I've visited (there are many). Not here. Strangely, it was not the bedlam of workmen who have to make the interior ready for the Papal visit in November that made the greatest impression. It was the light - a pale, greenish/pinkish glow that suggested a mystery beyond the merely holy - the mystery of life itself. The columns are organic in their construction, arching up like great trees to split into smaller branches and then into leaf-like fans supporting the ceiling. They seem to be in no recognisable pattern, and yet nothing seems out of place. The flow of stone is elegant and natural, and the light from windows - stained glass or otherwise - permeates the space from hundreds of openings. We were told of plans to fill some of the light-apertures with coloured glass - I think the accompanying photo shows how this might look (at the top of the pillar in the middle ground)
Outside, I was aware of the contrast between the sculptures round the door we had entered by and the ones on the Passion Façade by which we left. The older are of conventional style, though placed among Gaudi's fantastically melting stonework as in a gigantic dripping candle. On the Passion façade, however, Subirach's sculpture is starkly modern, almost cubist in appearance, and intensely powerful, as the road to the Cross is depicted as an upward path on the Western side of the building. Some of the detail escaped me in the bright midday sun - I only noticed the women covering their faces when I looked at the photos I had taken.
If it does indeed take another 20 years for this amazing building to be completed, it is unlikely that I shall see it. But even as it is, Gaudi's vision has transformed my idea of what a church can be. I shall never be satisfied again!
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Friday, September 24, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Sunny Barcelona!
This is where I've been for the past week - not stuck on the beach, natch, but indulging in various cultural pursuits and some less so, in the company of 52 other people. Think a school trip for adults and you'll get the flavour: a holiday where the individual participant only has to worry about being in the right place at the right time to catch the bus. You can find further information on the concept of the Fahrt (for this, Best Beloved, is its name) on Rev Ruth's blog, along with the actual diary of what we did; rather than reduplicate her work I shall allow myself the luxury of random comment.
There was something surreal in our swift transition from the rain and the dark of Linlithgow at 5am (for Fahrts are based in that august town), via the instant porridge that I ate at Prestwick Airport, to the warm sun and superb beach at Barcelona. I'd seen the forecast and was determined to swim in the sea - not something I've done so far this summer - and did just that, returning up the road to the hotel with the unmistakable holiday feeling of sand between the toes and salty skin.
Out hotel, the Villa Olympic, was one built for the Barcelona Olympics; Bruce our Obersturmbannführer (love the wee dots; not so sure about the spelling) told us to expect quite a swish hotel in an area reminiscent of Leith before gentrification set in. It was noteable chiefly for the interesting layout of the rooms - the first thing you saw when you opened the door was the bath, and there was a great deal of glass, strategically frosted - and the unpredictability of the lifts. It was not uncommon to find frustrated Fahrters soaring from ground floor to sixth and back again when they really wanted floor 2, and you had to use your key to activate it unless you were going straight down and hadn't fouled everything up so that it ground to a halt. This was especially entertaining on the night of The Flood, when a sudden burst pipe in one of the group's rooms dripped down two floors into the foyer and along the corridor. Fiona was in the middle of a hysterical ride when I joined her in the lift and promptly jiggered it; I had a vision of us having to break out through the roof but survived.
By the time we went to bed on the first night a night club was throbbing incessantly a couple of streets away, and the second day saw most of us who had rear-facing rooms switching to the front of the hotel. It also saw us visit La Sagrada Familia - but that's another story for another day. The flooded Fahrters, by the way, were rehoused. In a suite. It's tough being a Fahrter.
There was something surreal in our swift transition from the rain and the dark of Linlithgow at 5am (for Fahrts are based in that august town), via the instant porridge that I ate at Prestwick Airport, to the warm sun and superb beach at Barcelona. I'd seen the forecast and was determined to swim in the sea - not something I've done so far this summer - and did just that, returning up the road to the hotel with the unmistakable holiday feeling of sand between the toes and salty skin.
Out hotel, the Villa Olympic, was one built for the Barcelona Olympics; Bruce our Obersturmbannführer (love the wee dots; not so sure about the spelling) told us to expect quite a swish hotel in an area reminiscent of Leith before gentrification set in. It was noteable chiefly for the interesting layout of the rooms - the first thing you saw when you opened the door was the bath, and there was a great deal of glass, strategically frosted - and the unpredictability of the lifts. It was not uncommon to find frustrated Fahrters soaring from ground floor to sixth and back again when they really wanted floor 2, and you had to use your key to activate it unless you were going straight down and hadn't fouled everything up so that it ground to a halt. This was especially entertaining on the night of The Flood, when a sudden burst pipe in one of the group's rooms dripped down two floors into the foyer and along the corridor. Fiona was in the middle of a hysterical ride when I joined her in the lift and promptly jiggered it; I had a vision of us having to break out through the roof but survived.
By the time we went to bed on the first night a night club was throbbing incessantly a couple of streets away, and the second day saw most of us who had rear-facing rooms switching to the front of the hotel. It also saw us visit La Sagrada Familia - but that's another story for another day. The flooded Fahrters, by the way, were rehoused. In a suite. It's tough being a Fahrter.
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