The head of works of the Sagrada Família, Ramon Espel, receives us in the sacristy where the offices are located and gives us a guided tour of the temple that, without losing technical references, adopts plain language. No one like him knows what is happening, what is being projected and, above all, why it is being done.
The Sagrada Família is not a blueprint, it is a code. It is not a drawing, it is a language. A dictionary. A Bible, written and passed down by those who knew the master.
--- Easter Mona.
--- Look, the first time I heard this expression, I had only been working at the Sagrada Família for a few months and I was very impressed by the temple and the work. Right now, I've been working here for 30 years. And this expression surprised me a lot, it was during a program by Joaquim Maria Puyal and the guest was Oriol Bohigas. It made me very angry. I understand that, when it comes to such a large, such a beastly building, public opinion finds names or nicknames for it. It already happened with La Pedrera, which is why it's called La Pedrera, because of a nickname. But I don't see the mona at all. I see a small Manhattan of imagination, placed in the Eixample, where the sum of the height of all the towers is two kilometers, and where Modernism evidently has an imprint.
--- And what is Modernism?
--- Well, at that time it was a style of very daring, very transgressive people, paid for by a bourgeoisie much more risky than it sometimes seems. We must place ourselves in that moment! Then that architecture did seem like something crazy, and it was logical that it would be the object of mockery and nicknames. But now? What sense does it make to talk about Easter mona now, as if we were well-to-do gentlemen accustomed to the conservative neo-Gothic of that era? The crypt was already neo-Gothic: Gaudí, no. Gaudí breaks everything. Certainly now simpler, minimalist and cold forms are in vogue, but Modernism, and Gaudí, are history of the city. Those people pushed constructive techniques to the maximum, as well as the arts, stained glass, forging... Gaudí elevated it to infinity! Therefore, calling it Easter mona is not being modern, it is being anti-modern. It is being conservative.
--- 2026.
--- 2026 was a milestone before the pandemic, and now it is another. That milestone was based on the budget we had, on the construction systems, the industrial stone suppliers available (95% of the orders they received were ours!). Therefore, a fabric had already been created that allowed us to talk about 2026. The construction systems were already very advanced and allowed for great precision in quality and rigor, but also in schedule. 2026 was a feasible date, except for the sculptural group and the porch. The pandemic stopped everything and caused some industries not to be able to hold on, so they disappeared, and we have had to rebuild the entire fabric. Now we are back at cruising speed.
"Calling it an Easter monkey is not being modern, it is being anti-modern. It is being conservative"--- We will no longer see it.
--- Get out, man, we are young! Now we are facing each other again: in 2021 the tower of the Virgin Mary was already crowned and in mid-November we will officially hand over the four towers of the evangelists. And precisely in 2026, which by the way will be the international year of architecture, we will be able to reach the highest point: the tower of Jesus Christ. Because the Sagrada Família has not stopped, in terms of project, study, research. We were already studying the Glory facade a lot, just as we finished the study of the cloisters, the Assumption chapel and the second sacristy. Therefore, the year 2026 will mark, and how! And a lot! The skyline of Barcelona will be already broken, changed, definitively punctured. Without detracting from the Glory facade, which will come later. Only the Glory facade will remain and we will not have too much pressure on the date: we will find it. Apart from the fact that the Glory already begins to have its own inertia, such as the expansion of the museum, the basements, the foundations...
--- Miquel Barceló.
--- Here I only tell you that any artist would be proud to be commissioned a part of the Sagrada Família, such as the Glory facade. Whether it has been requested or not, which I cannot tell you, it is a great showcase for any artist. But everything depends on the character and projection of each artist, of course. Everything is respectable. Gaudí said that he would not finish the temple, but that he would leave it in such a way that new generations could contribute almost all the styles of the future and could adapt to its codes. The Sagrada Família is a great museum of the history of artistic styles.
--- The criticisms of the sculpture of Saint Matthew.
--- I haven't seen bitter criticism, frankly. Gaudí designed the terminals of the towers and we are used to that iconic, abstract shape, but which in truth represents croziers and bishop's rings. That super-revolutionary shape we are used to, when it is complemented not only by a star of Mary but now by four figurative statues with white, clearer and more explicit wings, I understand that it can impress. But it's all in Gaudí's plans. In fact, if we talk about it, it's important: you move something from the Sagrada Família and it's as if they touched a tooth of all of us, it's sensitive material. But everything is written, these statues are written and foreseen, although Gaudí did not write a single book: his disciples did it, through the master's observations. Yes, like Jesus.
--- Gaudí.
--- We don't invent anything. It is true that in '36 many plans from Gaudí's studio were burned. In his lifetime he already had a perception that translating the Sagrada Família into a plan was too difficult, because the concept is very three-dimensional. This already happened to him in La Pedrera: from a plaster sculpture he moved to architecture, under the promise of the absence of any straight line. But the thing is that La Pedrera he could model every day, he would go there and find the worker of the green trencadissos and pick up a green piece. He was doing, like a sculptor: he had to be there! So, what would happen with the Sagrada Família when he was not there? If he is in fact a sculptor, an artisan, and who also works amorphously, discovering natural forms, interpreting nature, how will we do it? This is where he begins to work on ruled surfaces so that this helps his disciples to follow a code. For example, that sacristy where we are now, that pineapple, he left it very detailed. And, if we stretched it upwards, it would be like one of the towers.
"In his lifetime, Gaudí already had a perception that translating the Sagrada Família into a plan was too difficult"--- You don't respect Gaudí.
--- On the contrary. Gaudí leaves the temple project very advanced regarding what he will no longer see. There are few plans, true, but he is more about models! The archive burns, the crypt burns, the scaffolding of the bell towers burns, and the models are shattered. But then the disciples do something miraculous: they hang these pieces of models from the ground and, at the same time, deposit the foundation's funds in a London bank. A few years later, they return to the site and unearth the pieces. To start doing puzzles. Now, it is true that if you have three parabolic shapes that are not in the model, what you should do is fill that void through the fixed codes and methods. For example, we had to think about the 60-meter vault of the transept from scratch, but there was only one possible geometric shape to make all the angles fit!
--- Faves comptades, then.
--- Faves comptades, exactly.
--- Subirachs.
--- Subirachs was, above all, a great colleague. With zero desire for protagonism, one of us. He lived here and was a very simple person. As for the Passion facade, when you understand it, it's hat-off. "Criticize me when I'm finished!", he exclaimed. In fact, if the Nativity facade is the most monumental nativity scene in the world, the Passion was already planned by Gaudí to be cold and raw. And Subirachs' type of sculpture fit with this. Therefore, Subirachs' respect for Gaudí is well demonstrated (leaving aside the helmet-chimneys, the figure of Gaudí himself sculpted on the facade according to a photo of him during the Corpus ceremony…).
--- Too many colors.
--- You must say that because the new figures of the evangelists are very white: yes, Thassos marble is the whitest in the world, and it was chosen so that these figures would have entity. There is a concept that many people do not have in mind, and it is normal: right now the existing background is the blue of the sky, which makes this white marble stand out a lot. But in 2026 the background will be stone, that is, the tower of Jesus Christ! So these winged sculptures will be less prominent, and it is important to ensure that they do not fade too much. Haven't you noticed that there is no blue color in the Sagrada Família?
--- No.
--- Look at the emblematic towers, the spires, the staffs, and the abstract bishop's rings. There is no blue, there are primary colors like red or yellow, but no blue. Gaudí was very aware of this, why resort to blue, if we live in the Mediterranean? Why use blue, if blue is already in the sky?