November 4, 2010
WHO COULD EVER BE IN LESS OF A HURRY THAN A POPE?:
Image via Wikipedia
Rush is a relative term when talking about a building under construction for the past 125 years.But the pace of carving and hoisting has clearly picked up at the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, Antoni Gaudí's unfinished masterpiece and one of Spain's top tourist sites.
The church's 250 craftsmen have been hurrying to get the central nave finished in time for the visit next weekend by Pope Benedict XVI, who will consecrate the church as a Basilica, more than a century after Gaudí's first parabolic line was drawn in stone.
"I've been working intensely by day and recently, because of the visit, at night," said Japanese sculptor Etsuro Sotoo, who created 30 giant pieces of fruit and Eucharist symbols, each 4m high and weighing 15 tonness, for the 60m-high roof.
So when the Pope offers his blessing next Sunday, he will find a minor miracle: this seemingly endless construction project is nearly complete. Well, that's another relative term. The stained glass windows are still missing, and so are many of the interior sculptures. A handful of spires have yet to be erected, and the final Facade of Glory is still a blank slate.
But the 6,500 invited guests, including 1,000 priests and 100 bishops from around the world, will pray amid a forest of columns, inclined like growing trees. Overhead, the faithful will see vaults covered in brick and green-and-gold tiles, fractured in Gaudí's characteristic mosaic style, trencadis. They will listen to a 2,000-pipe organ.
"From an architectural point of view, it's finished," said Armand Puig, author of a recently published book, The Sagrada Familia According to Gaudí.
