When I traveled to Spain, the city that took my breath away was Barcelona, much of this is attributed to Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi was an architect with an astute knowledge of geometry and design. His buildings took my breath away. His work was so innovative and distinguished for his time (circa 1850). Gaudi is credited with being the Catalan representative of Modernism. The Modernism movement was a revolt against the conservative aspects of realism. The fundamentals of Modernism was to do away with the classical convention of what was tradition and to create a new cultural movement that would coincide with the emerging industrialized world. Modernist were not like the Enlightenment thinkers, they did not credit anything to "The Creator". They developed the ideas the world was more complex and could not be defined by religion, government, God, or science as the final authority. Gaudi represents this lack of convention in the structure and aesthetics of his work. It is like nothing I have ever seen and highly doubt it can ever be replicated. Here are some photos I took...
These last two photos are of La Sagrada Familia, this is Gaudi's most famous work and sadly he was not able to finish it due to his untimely death in 1926. Sadly, many people will never get to see this architectural masterpiece completed in their lifetime. It is expected to be completed in 2025, I will be 37 years old and you can bet that I will be in Barcelona to see La Sagrada Familia completed. The completion of this cathedral now falls in the hands of construction workers and citizens that have VOLUNTEERED their skills and time to make Gaudi's vision a reality. Now, if that is not a beautiful story then I don't know what is. So my advice to you is to put this on your list of places to see. Even if you have seen 100 cathedrals in your lifetime you have not seen one like this.
With that I say Adios,
Kristina
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