La Sagrada Familia

Building a Skyscraper: Crane required

What a doddle it must be to erect a modern high-rise building, compared with the difficulties faced by those builders in mediaeval times. Their churches and cathedrals soar dizzyingly heavenwards without benefit of modern scaffolding kits, cranes and mechanical diggers.

It’s the view of Cádiz shown in the featured photo that prompted thoughts like these. The modern industrial hub is visible from the older city centre. Here’s another view:

Let’s go to London, a city so changed from the days when I lived there in the 1950s and 60s. Here’s a gallery of soaring towers, and the cranes that made building them possible. There are even cranes surrounding St. Paul’s Cathedral. And The London Eye makes a useful picture frame for yet another high-rise office.

And here’s new and old, juxtaposed: from Gherkin to Tower of London

Slightly off-topic, I have to include a few shots from the Gasholder development in Kings Cross. From dirty industrial back streets to desirable address in an imaginative few years.

There’s one cathedral still under construction that’s taking even longer to build than its mediaeval antecedents: La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Look.

Did you notice the builder in his hi-viz gear and safety equipment? He’s not the only one who needs to have a head for heights on these modern buildings. Here’s a team of window cleaners in Warsaw:

Tina has invited us, in this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge #173 to choose interesting architecture. I’ve chosen to focus on how the buildings I’ve selected reached such immense heights.

Upstanding craftsmen …

… work high up on the highest spires of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The squares show one of these craftsmen doing his work, almost at the very top. The featured photo gives some idea of how Gaudí’s as yet unfinished cathedral towers high above the city.

Square Up

Building a Cathedral in 144 Years

One of Europe’s emblematic skylines is provided by Antoni Gaudí‘s La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Its construction began in 1882. It’s due to be completed in 2026. The cranes which are a constant feature of the skyline will at last become a thing of the past.

Square Perspectives

Snapshot Saturday: many stories – one cathedral

This week’s pictures hint at two or more stories: at that of the life of Jesus, from whose life and teaching spring one of the world’s great religions. And at the building of La Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudí’s cathedral celebrating Jesus’ family, created by thousands of craftspeople with special stories to tell, gathered over the last 136 years …. maybe only another eight or so to go.

‘Story’ is this week’s WordPress photo challenge. Click on any image to view full size.

The last time we went to la Sagrada Familia was maybe twenty years ago. My abiding memory is of seeing a monstrous fork lift truck parked in one of the aisles, totally dwarfed by the Cathedral in which it incongruously found itself.

Today was different. The Cathedral which Gaudí began in March 1882 is due to be completed exactly 100 years after his death, in June 2026: so the fork lift trucks are long gone.

What is there new to say about this inspiring, spiritually uplifting and imaginative building? Even the selfie stick dependent visitors thronging through can’t destroy its power.

Imagine, as Gaudī wanted you to do, walking through an ancient forest, the sunlight filtering through the topmost branches, dappling the trunks and forest floor with dancing daylight. Imagine the changing colours of that forest as the chilly morning sun rises in the east, then finally sets, warm and vibrant, in the west. La Sagrada Familia captures all that. It celebrates nature in stone, glass, ironwork and mosaic tile. Here are just a few shots to try to capture that mood.