Aug 2018
Gaudi hedges his bets
Against the future.
More than one hundred thirty-five years
Of building the infinite
La Sagrada Familia.
A stone mason’s nightmare.
An architect’s dream,
Painted by de Chirico.
Faith and nature intertwine.
Brown earth smears the facades.
Nativity and passion morph
Into angular designs.
A lizard, a leaf, a cross, a dove.
Bejeweled pillars bend and rise.
Crowned towers reach and climb
Spiral staircases to the heavens.
Chapels pray for silence.
Tourists pray for photo-ops.
All views turn inward.
There is much work to be done.
Against the future.
More than one hundred thirty-five years
Of building the infinite
La Sagrada Familia.
A stone mason’s nightmare.
An architect’s dream,
Painted by de Chirico.
Faith and nature intertwine.
Brown earth smears the facades.
Nativity and passion morph
Into angular designs.
A lizard, a leaf, a cross, a dove.
Bejeweled pillars bend and rise.
Crowned towers reach and climb
Spiral staircases to the heavens.
Chapels pray for silence.
Tourists pray for photo-ops.
All views turn inward.
There is much work to be done.
Antoni Gaudi is Spain's most important modernista architect. He began work on the Basilica La Sagrada Familia in the late 1800s; the church is still unfinished, but construction continues. A completion date keeps changing, but may be in the first third of this century.
