Sagrada Familia, hyperboloids and designing buildings upside down

MG writes:

Writing (in a small way) about Gaudi's masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia, the other day has prompted me to expound upon one of the most bizarre, original and profound manifestations of faith in all Christendom; unfinished (as of today) as it is, it must stand witness to all that is good about Christianity. Not that the Christians have a monopoly on staggering architecture; the mosque, the Dome on the Rock, in Jerusalem is a pretty blinding piece of Muslim building work.

Since the earliest times, Mankind appears to have gone to almost unimaginable lengths to demonstrate their 'faith'. From Stonehenge, the pyramids and the temple at Giza, Pumapunku, Chichen Itza, the Parthenon, the temple at Baalbek, the cathedrals at Köln*, Freiburg, Chartres, l'Isle de France**, Salzburg, London, Rome, Seville***, societies have spared little or no expense in erecting monuments to that most ephemeral and insubstantial of their creations; God.

And yet, as the centuries have passed and the 'Enlightenment' and reason increasingly take hold, it relegates God, if he (or she) is to exist at all, to a mere bystander, a mere solitary witness to the glory of the universe which he (or she) set in motion, so both the pace and number of genuinely magnificent buildings to his (or her) glory gradually decline. Grandeur, magnificence, the awesome power and imagination of the architectural mind is now given over to the more secular activity of housing the 'money lenders in the temple'; the Gherkin, the Chrysler Building, the Burj-al-Arab, the Reichstag.

The USA aside, I know too little about churches in the US or their value in architectural terms, the only twentieth century cathedral apart from Gaudi's masterpiece, that springs to mind is Coventry. Liverpool was also built in the twentieth century but harks rearwards so much to the flowering of the nineteenth century neo-gothic that it can scarcely be thought of as a twentieth century creation.

Although the Sagrada Familia was 'designed' in the nineteenth century, Gaudi began work on the design in 1883, and also harks back to the Gothic churches and cathedrals of Köln, Frankfurt, Freiburg among others (although the founder of the order to establish the church, Josep Maria Bocabella, was probably more inspired by the Baroque church at Loreto), it takes the Gothic concept of high towers and vaulted naves and aisles and turns them inside out. Gaudi's cathedral design has not one spire (like Frankfurt) nor two (like Köln) but originally eighteen; one each for the twelve apostles, four for each of the Evangelists, one for the Virgin Mary and, finally the tallest (one metre below the height of Montjuic, the hill in Barcelona) for Jesus Christ. This is a dream seldom imagined before; it remains to be seen whether all eighteen are built.

The scale of the building can scarce be imagined but it is in the interior where the real surprise lies. In most Gothic cathedrals, the roof is supported by conventional vaulting, which lends a gentle, parabolic curvature to each facet of the four (usually) sides of each 'vault'. In the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi has preserved the vaulting but has appoached it in a highly novel way. Each vault is not 'designed' from the ground up, so to speak, but from the top down; yes, Gaudi designed the interior of the building upside down. Each element of the vaulting was envisisoned as a small, weighted bag suspended from the floor by thin strings; the strings provide the curvature of the vault. This produces a substantially different kind of vaulting to conventional models. (A model of the 'upside down' design, reconstructed I believe, is in the crypt of the church, which houses a 'museum' dedicated to the church and to Gaudi.). This hyperboloid structure is unique, as far as I am aware, in European church architecture.

Whether by design, laziness, pressure of work, Franco's vandalism or his untimely death (run over by a Barcelone tram on 10 June 1926), much of the detail was omitted from plans. This has led to both difficulties in imagining how Gaudi himself envisioned the cathedral but also an almost unprecedented scope for artists and craftsmen to create a truly modern cathedral within the strictures of the original design; truly a twentieth century masterpiece!

In keeping with other examples of Gaudi's work, it has an organic quality, as though it were not built but grew out of the stone and concrete, already present in the ground; much as a tree grows by layering successive bands of cellulose around a central core. You can see echoes all around; the way the towers are constructed like the covered walkways in Parc Guell, knarled tree bark constructed out of balls of concrete over a frame; the weird and fantastic shapes of the 'Casa Figueras' and 'Casa Vincens'; the sculptures surmounting the spires, so similar to the houses that can be seen in the distance as you approach Parc Guell from the west (not the usual way in but...)****; I even find echoes of Gaudi's design for lamp-posts (eg in the Plaça Reial). A witness to the consistency of his architectural vision.

I was aware of Gaudi's work from my late teens; photographs of the more bizarre details from the church and the houses that he built. In fact, for a long time, I believed that the English word 'gaudy' was a direct testament to his ostentation and over-ornamention (it isn't*****) but I always had a suspicion that the problem was one of scale; a 10"x8" photograph could not possibly capture 'the grandeur in this view of life"; I was right! Until you actually see it, it is impossible to appreciate the magnificance of it all. Truly astounding!

*           Cologne to you non-German speakers
**         Notre Dame as it is better known; it of Hunchback fame.
***       And apologies to all those other cities not mentioned
****     The approach to the west gate of the Parc is up a very steep hill lined with houses. There is an uncovered escalator riding up the hill with convenient 'drop off' points for local residents!
*****   It actually comes from 'gaud', E, 14th century, from L. 'gaudium', meaning 'joy', 'delight'; only later did it acquire its perjorative sense.