The Sagrada Familia

The post you've all been waiting for!... Or not, but its still a cool post. This is about the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's masterpeice and famously unfinished church. My teacher Cece who lives here in Barcelona has a lot of connections, and she actually got a private tour for us, which is not exactly easy to do to say the least. It was free of charge, and we were lead around by the current architect, Jordi Bonet, seen on the right. Mr. Bonet is about 80, and he has been the leading architect for like 25 years. You should see him running up scaffolds! He's faster than any of the students or teachers! But anyway, we were given a private tour of the construction site within the church, and we got to climb a bunch of scaffolding in the church, it was really neat. I was in places of the Sagrada Familia that no one will ever be able to go once it is finished. Enjoy the pictures!

From afar, the church is quite visible.

Many many cranes.

The part made since Gaudi's death...

This is the nativity scene that is on the right side of the nave, which Gaudi finished himself in his lifetime. Only another 100 meters up to go :) Oh, and about 10 towers.

When Patrick was here in March I took him to see the church :)

The Passion facade to the left of the nave. Gaudi's theory on his columns, which are not straight up and down was that if a man uses a cane to lean on, he doesn't lean on it when it is straight up and down, he bows it out, so why would you make supports that are straight up and down?

Detail, as you can see, the passion, finished after Gaudi's death, is very different and much more modern in design than the nativity scene.

Some towers, they all say that.

The interior of the nave, looking at the scaffolding

Looking up, notice, the roof is very much unfinished....

Looking out the hole from atop the scaffolding... Part of our private tour :)

Looking down

Unfinished windows, when the church is finished in roughly 2026, these will all be stained glass.

Beautiful.

Stairs cases that are in the towers and all in the church, these ones go to the choir gallery.

A peice of the church hanging up until it is properly mounted.

The main tower... Still needs anotherh undred meters.

Looking down into the nave from the scaffolding on top of the church.

Some rebar for reinforcing cement.

more exposed structure. This is a shape seen all over the church... I think Mr. Bonet called it a hyperparaboloid?

Peices, labeled and ready to be put into place.

Recent sketching...

There are some sketches i've done recently, some of them in Morocco.

Here in BCN, the Coac, I explored in section, axon, and plan the building, it's orientation, and the idea of floating that completes its design.

The Batha museum in Morocco, which had a beautiful outdoor/indoor courtyard in its center.

Barcelona's weather instition, which is a circulat building, explored in section and plan. A very simple looking building that was surprisingly complex.

A medursa (Sp?) in Morocco that had a great threshhold between sacred and profane.

A garden that was inside an ex governer's palace in Morocco. Explored in plan. the landscaped areas are dark. Patterns are very prominent in Morocco.

The wood museum in Morocco, very beautiful building with a ton of ... wood. Notice how the building's interior might appear to be squared on the inside, when infact, the building is anything but square. This is an infull lot.

Fes, Morocco!

Hey everyone! My class had a trip to Morocco, so here is a series of photos outlining my experience there :)











My hotel room, we lived like princesses hehe.

Me standing on a hill over looking Fes.

The city of satelites.

The Merenid tombs that over look Fes.

Classtime! (Or rather, sketch time!)

The Bab Boujeloud gate into the old city (Medina)

What the average street/walkway in Fes looks like.

One of the gates at the palace.

Check out the timy doors! (Thats me, so you can scale it haha)

The Royal gates, with the guards...

Who are heavily armed.

The Mokri Palace that is being restored.

A bedroom in the Morki Palace.

Some mosaics and designs on the walls.

Yours truly, sketching.

We visited the eremics factory! (Check out all those bowls!)

A manually run pottery wheel (the man's feet spin it)

A man setting up the mosacis for a table... when we asked the tour guide how he knew where to put all the peices, the response was ,"He knows.".

No, he's not hammering it to break it, he chiseling off the top layer of clay of make a design.

I'm converting?

Old school... He's weaving things like the scarf I am wearing above.

Hawra found a friend!

The city of Bhalil. We took a field trip to cities outside Fes for a day to visit Bhalil, Sefrou, and Ifrane, the last of which we visited to see the cedar forest :)

Ladies in Bhalil are very flexible.. here seen washing clothes.

Urchins. They pester you for money. CONSTANTLY.

People in Bhalil live in caves. Here is a really nice cave.

An animal cave where they keep donkies.

Sanitation in Morocco is not like the US... Those are bees.

A waterfall :)

Which flows into the river.

Ok, so I am riding a donkey in a dried up lake. How many people can say that they've done that?

And Peej haha.

The dried up lake with its dunes.

A wild dog in a sand storm in the lake. Don't worry mom, the dogs are friendly, especially since I gave them food.

In the cedar forest there are monkies!

And they will eat out of you hands!

And they know not to eat the orange peels.

Very cute.

And very friendly.

And here is a REALLY cute baby one!

Scales in what used to be a place where caravans would come to the city to sell their goods.

It is now a wood museum (the wood in here is Cedar, which they swear the best treatment for cedar is olive oil!)

Christi, my teacher, looking up (I'm on the roof)

Ther are these strange dove/peacock birds on the roof.

These are dye tubs for leather at the leather working shop.