30th Jan

Sitting underneath the strange bulk of Gaudis fantasy temple, the church of the Sagrada Familia.

It is the Willy Wonka´s chocolate factory of cathedrals.

Tall cranes and the rise and descent of men on lifts signifies a structure still in various stages of construction.

I don´t really know what to think. Has Gaudi gone too far? Does such a structure, perhaps never to be finished, serve a useful purpose, other than that of a rather perverse, egotistical landmark?

Perhaps my timein Rome, spent drinking wine beneath Michaelangelo, Bramante, Brunolesci, Bernini- has me biased.

Certainly this is a unique expressino, and one that only Gaudi makes possible to be real.

But I can´t help thinking that JR Tolkien, Frank Lloyd Wright, and a Three-headed dragon had an orgasmic field day in devising this one.

Contrast this with Gaudi´s spectacular, breathlessness-inducing, Casa Perdrera, which exucdes, besides sheer beauty, a pure and basic functionality.

The elegant residential spaces flowed ergonomically, and the ripples and curves of the walls and ceilings were natural, full of light, and reason.

It seemed a place that one would want (very badly) in which to live. His brilliant touches, such as hiding water tanks and pipes in artful masks, and his use of detail of light, color, and texture, are awe inspiring.

I spent two hours wandering around the dreama Palazzo and could have spent more. Gaudi seems the father of invention of many of the 20th century movements that so many love and hold high.

From the 1920s art deco itself, to Lloyd Wright, to current day use of arches, curves, and glass.

And himself the culmination of all that was beautiful and innovative in the 19th century, and well before. Thoroughly Spanish, and Catalan, in his link to the past; very continental in his parallels with Vienna, Paris, Berlin; but futuristic and global in his combination of all elements into something unique, lasting, and incomparably novel.

Gaudi tickles all senses and evokes all emotions. His largest gift to the world, this hulking mass of a Cathedral, does all of those things.

I am just not sure that I can take it seriously as an edifice. Perhaps, thought, this is exactly what Gaudi intended.