But before them, a little bit about this
church and why it's so important. It's been under construction or the
past 400 years an is only about 60% done despite the original plan
stating that it would be done 200 years ago. It's architecture was
created by the famous builder Gaudi who used trees and paraboloids as
his inspiration for the structure of the church. When it's finished it's
supposed to have 16 spires (4 on 3 sides for the apostles, one for
Mary, one for Joseph, one for St. Paul, and one in the center for Jesus)
with three façades for the nativity, passion, and holy family (I
think). On the outside, it doesn't look like much an you can definitely
see here the old stone ends an the new stone begins on the nativity
façade, but the inside is a completely different story. The stained
glass windows were absolutely amazing to look at and the decorations on
the ceiling and floors were so pretty. I'm not joking when I say I was in
absolute awe at the view inside the church. At one point one of my
friends looked at me and was mildly concerned at the tears in my eyes.
Yes, it was that beautiful and I highly recommend anyone even mildly
interested in architecture or churches or even just looking at anything
pretty to go. It's supposed to be finished in the next 25 years an will
be the tallest church in the world. In a small room off to the side was
an exhibit dedicated to the inspirations Gaudi took from nature for the
architecture and below the church is something like a museum that shows
early ideas an models for the church. But can I just take a minute to
talk about the windows? Each window was dedicated to a different color
group that seamlessly blended from one window to the next. All the
colors in that window were put together in a sort of mosaic style and
when the light shone through them, it truly looked like glittering
gemstones instead of colored glass. Fun fact: that was actually the
original purpose of stained glass windows due to the verse in the bible
that describes heaven as paced with hold and gemstones. The architects
of churches used this to make stained glass windows without any type of
set design, but later these windows showed scenes from the bible or
different important people in the Christian faith because if you're
going to make it pretty, why not make it informative as well? In terms
of churches, the outside was not the most visually appealing, but the
inside more than made up for it and this church is now one of my
favorites in all the world. Alright, done gushing about the beautiful
church, I promise.
Our first view of the church
The passion facade (just the crucifixion part. The rest isn't shown)
Windows!
Also, these. This is for Luke (the Ox)
For Jon (the Eagle)
For Mark (the Lion)
And last but definitely not least, Matthew (the Man)
P.S. Love you bro!
So many different colors!
Everyone on this trip in one shot.
Just...awe is all I can feel at this. The Crucifix, windows, and organs are so perfect here
I think I'm more in love with the windows than any church architecture yet
Aren't they like the precious stones they're supposed to imitate?
As a last note, yes, this was an exact copy of what's written in my other blog, hence why it's written in this way. But seriously, this was my favorite part of the trip. I plan of writing the rest of the blogs that I've been saving up in different posts due to how long this post would be if they were all combined. Thank goodness for my personal blog so I can go back and remember what happened in detail.
Erin Z
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