Sagrada Familia Mosaic and Happy BlogDay 2006!

With this colorful picture of a mosaic detail on one of Sagrada Familia spires by Gaudi, I wish you all a Happy Blogday2006 or 3108, a number that looks like the word Blog and a day in which you are supposed to share five links and then use tag blogday2006. It is some sort of social experiment supposed to expand the blogosphere, creating more interaction among bloggers. So here they are:

- Barcelona Photobloggers, the blog that represents and unifies the photoblog community in Barcelona.

- Mexican Pictures an impressive photoblog about different countries describing common people.

- Photoschau, a German photoblog with spectacular pictures.

- FotobyImran fantastic images posted from Singapore, Malaysia.

- Moodaholic, some other pictures that called my attention, from Denmark.

PS: Last Tuesday, August 29th Barcelona Photoblog was featured among other fellow bloggers in an article titled Ciudadano blog. Miles de bloggers de Barcelona copan con sus experiencias los diarios en internet by Borja Bujedo and Lucía Magí, published in La Vanguardia, an important newspaper in our country, edited in Barcelona. As it is the first time I ever appear in the papers or any media you can imagine how happy I felt. If the article has helped Barcelona or Spanish bloggers gain more recognition in the press and at the same time visitors got to know more about our daily work, it would be really rewarding. This could not have happened without all you people visiting me, thank you very much.

Update: I still remember this special event for Barcelona Photoblog. Thanks again for your support all these years!

Sagrada Familia: Portal of Nativity

After examining the opposite façade in detail in previous posts, I select this picture of the Nativity Portal taken from behind the gates late in the afternoon, once the place was not flooded with tourists.

PS: Next Tuesday I start my summer holidays (full August). I will post when I am back from Paris and Disney Land Paris around August 8th. I want you all to understand that this is just a break along the way and not a farewell. When I am back I will be travelling around Spain so I will be able to use my archives at least twice a week. The intention is not to give up and return with more energy in September. This is a fascinating hobby, as fascinating as time consuming but what the heck, as long as there is somehing to shoot at!.

Satellite View of Sagrada Familia on Google Maps.

Sagrada Familia: Sunset At The Passion Façade

I took this late afternoon picture just passing by Sagrada Familia Passion Façade the other day. 

It is hard to come up with good shots about this portico, I mean, it is hard to surprise people with a new approach, a different angle. So every time I see it I try to explore the scenes as if expecting Subirachs sculptures to adopt some secret pose nobody hadn´t seen before. 

If you use your imagination and you wait for the last sun rays to play with the angular figures on the wall, sometimes you may get your reward: notice how Nieodemus at Jesus' feet, in the upper image (some people say it is Subirachs, the sculptor himself) seems to stick his head out as if looking for the light. 

For a wonderful description of each scene and figure, visit this site, particularly check scenes 15 and 8 according to the enumeration given there.

See the Sagrada Familia Picture on a Google Earth Map

Sagrada Familia: Floral Adornment

When you visit Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudi, it is easy to overlook minor details overwhelmed as you are by the emotional impact of this gigantic masterpiece of universal architecture. When in front of the Nativity Façade, which you can better appreciate sitting on the exterior wall of the premises, take a good look at this floral adornment at one side of the iron gates, notice the elaborate and incredibly realistic contour of the kelp-like metal work. I have to say that this is not the authentic color, of course. Check original picture here.

See Sagrada Familia Floral Adornment Picture on a Google Earth Map

Sagrada Familia: Longinos and the Sacred Spear

Ask me how I feel now. I had prepared an inspired post about the legend of Longinos the character in my picture and I was using Picasa function called Blog This. After more than an hour of work, I click on publish and there it goes down the drains. Can I swear here? So now I can only "thank" Blogger and Picasa for the big help.

Summary: Cayo Casio Longinos was the soldier who pierced the dead body of Christ with a spear, the sacred spear. His eyesight was impaired but he got cured when splashed by the gushing blood coming out of Jesus wound. Converted to the faith he went on a pilgrimage carrying a metal cup, containing the blood, which is also known as the Holy Grial.

You can see more pictures of the Passion Façade here and some more information in my previous post about the gates of this Sagrada Familia portal.

See the Sagrada Familia Picture on a Google Earth Map

Sagrada Familia: The Passion Façade Gates

The impressive portico of the Passion Façade at Sagrada Familia is full of precious details of religious scenes, verses, symbols and austere geometric forms as it is supposed to represent the Passion and Death of Christ. This part of the temple was begun in 1954. The sculptures by Josep Ma. Subirach of stern and sober design, look modern if compared to the ones on the Nativity Façade. As a "modest" sample of all that can be admired here, I show you this engraved metal gate, where among other things you can read a passage from a verse in Mathew 26:39.

Sagrada Familia: The Jungle Columns

Architecture imitates mother nature sometimes when it comes to capricious forms defying the laws of physics. Imagine a huge tree with a thick trunk and a heavy load of foliage on top. Picture yourself taking a closer look to its base: a dense labyrinth of arched roots that know nothing about calculus, geometry or physics deadening the enormous weight, spreading the charge and making a bigger base. Now take all that draw it on a plane without Autocad or Maya. Don´t get scared, you can´t but Gaudi did. He didn´t invent the buttress and prop systems as they were widely used in cathedrals before but he took it to a mathematical perfection. I already have this image published at Flickr but I wanted to share it with you that appreciate art and are eager to know more about each other's cities.

Vertigo at the Edge of the Vortex

Alfred Hitchcock might as well have used Sagrada Familia for his Vertigo movie. This is the core of the spire as seen from the shaft of the lift that saves you the painstaking effort of climbing the extremely narrow spiral staircase which you can see at the far end. At the moment the price for this compensation is to stand in line for a while and pay 2 euros for the elevator.

Art Likes Black and White

Not everything accepts black and white as art does. If you liked those clear blues skies in the previous post, notice here how this masterpiece needs not to be reinforced by color. This again is the Passion façade and I post the picture to show the covered spires and the scaffolding that is omnipresent in the new side. Thanks to my friend Bob from Barcelona daily photo for reminding me that not all the towers look so polished, as some of them are covered by some green plastic net. Thanks to Lisi from Hong Kong daily photo for asking what the letters on the spires read - "Hosanna in Excelsis. Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus" something that is said at the end of Sanctus in Mass. The towers as you know represent the Holy Family.

Sagrada Familia 'n' Spires

How many images have you seen like these: many. But don´t tell me you get tired. Did you know that neither this generation nor next will see Sagrada Familia finished? Did you know that the money to continue Gaudi's work does not come from the government or from taxes but only from donations and the entrance charge? Notice in front of you that there is someone standing in a sort of corridor between the spires, well I am standing with my camera in a similar spot but in the newer towers closer to the Passion Façade.

Sagrada Familia: Mosaic Detail of a Spire

This is a wonderful view of one of the spires in the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. After taking a lift where you are charged two euros (better than climbing up the spiral staircase which is very narrow) you get to a small passage between the towers from where the city, the sea and the mountains can be seen in all its splendor. Small details of this unfinished masterpiece like this mosaic buttons stand right before you, making your camera hesitate between them or a good picture of the skyline.

Stained Glass

Inside Gaudi's Sagrada Familia fantasy travels at the speed of light. Stained glass windows are so sophisticated and futuristic in design that for a moment you might think you are dwelling Tolkien's most surrealistic dreams.

Sagrada Familia: The Passion Façade

Passion Façade detail