Unfinished Like Me

Gaudí’s Sagrada Família and the sacred architecture of healing

Stained glass inside Sagrada Família | All Images © Paradis Media llc

La Sagrada Família tugs reverence from your insides until it surfaces. Towering, unfinished, and improbable. It’s an ancient thing still becoming. For some reason, watching the exhibition of ropes and weights — Gaudí’s odd, organic method for mapping balance — sunk deep, like a heaviness draping through my intestines. Not grotesque, but a guttural significance that starts from the depths and vaults into the heavens.

We arrived in mid-afternoon, and after a week of scorching heat, we had swung back into a violent chill, particularly noticeable in the shadows of the spires. While waiting for our entry time, we ambled around the manmade pond, taking photos of some Canadian lads, the church standing prominently behind.

Left: the basilica through the trees, Right: the full towers of La Sagrada Família from inside the Barcelona tram

I’ve been circling this church for over a decade, not exactly geographically, but emotionally, spiritually — maybe even cosmically. This day would mark the first time I’d venture in. Here in Catalunya, Antoni Gaudí lives permanently in our periphery. His father’s forge, a twice-visited field trip. His likeness, forever descending the steps of our town square. They leave little…