IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section B

Abstract

Sagrada Familia has become the iconic symbol of Barcelona. This paper will analyze the characteristics of Sagrada Familia that explain its singular status as an architectural and civic icon. Sagrada Familia occupies an unusual historical position because as a cathedral—architecturally, not ecclesiastically—it can be associated with the past, especially the medieval past. But it can appear a modern, almost avant-garde building as well. Sagrada Familia has always been a building under construction. The presence of ongoing creation also helps make it appear both historical and contemporary. Sagrada Familia is a signature work by an individual with a strong personal style, arguably the first modern “starchitect.” Sagrada Familia is an urban landmark. Unlike Corbusier’s chapel at Ronchamp or Wright’s Fallingwater, it is identified with a metropolis, and benefits from being the centerpiece of a group of Gaudí works that establish a broad-based association between city and architect. Sagrada Familia, with its dramatic towers, reads perfectly as a silhouette. Like the Parthenon and Eiffel Tower, Sagrada Familia has a form well suited to serve as a civic logo because it makes possible easy, immediate recognition. But Sagrada Familia’s status as an emblem of Barcelona relies on more than visual efficacy. Sagrada Familia, both popular and controversial, represents what Roland Barthes would call a mythology. The iconographic significance of Sagrada Familia, developed over time, is the product of factors that range from religion and politics to tourism and the Olympics to the shift in architecture from modernism to postmodernism.