If you know me you know I already have my travels tentatively planned out for oh at least the next five years. This fall is Thailand, and then next year is Spain, specifically Barcelona. And yes as a bona fide architecture nerd I will be seeing as much Antoni Gaudí there as possible (not to mention Jean Nouvel, Mies van der Rohe, Richard Meier, Herzog and de Meuron...). I want to spend an afternoon exploring the nooks and crannies of Gaudí's Sagrada Familia, challenging my fear of heights by getting up into one of the blobby towers and then my claustrophobia by venturing into the crypt. Construction on the church famously continues over a century after work initially began, and now a group of Barcelona artists and architects have voiced their concern over what they see as a blurring of Gaudí's intentions:
In a statement, the group said: "What stands out is the mediocrity of a
group of technicians and developers who are well-meaning but full of an
anachronistic paternalism in the best of cases and are once more using
Gaudí to leave their personal mark on the building to the detriment of
the original work."
It's forever causing problems, this church. The unconventional Passion facade was unveiled to a storm of criticism in the 1980s, and just last year plans to construct a train tunnel yards away from the foundation was greeted by typically understated Spanish opinion:
Backed by local civic groups, the advisers to Unesco in Spain, and
architects and engineers from 50 universities around the world, Jordi
Bonet i Armengol, who has worked on Gaudi's daring [church] for 40
years, said yesterday: "I am astounded by this brutality. This is an
attack on culture of the highest order, something one would only expect
of a third-world country."
It will almost be sad when the building is finally finished, but I needn't worry about that for my trip next year. The cranes will still be up.