"This new star will shine for the poor, the sick, the elderly and the young in the city of Barcelona." On 8 December, on the night of the religious feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, the Cardinal of Barcelona unveiled the "Star of Bethlehem" in the Sagrada Familia during a live Mass and broadcast this speech by Pope Francis.
The €1.5 million, 5.5-tonne Star of Bethlehem, which stands on a 138-metre-high spire, has not only changed Barcelona's skyline, but has also become the focus of global attention – meaning that the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, Spain, which has been built for 140 years since 1881, seems to be at the end of its construction.
During the day, the 12-pointed star made of fiberglass crystal clear in the sun, and at night, it lights up from the inside and shines under the stars. Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí has marked in his design drawings that the "Star of Bethlehem" will use white light, and after a hundred years, the architect's wish has finally been fulfilled in the night sky of Barcelona.
The lighting of the "Star of Bethlehem" does not mean that the Sagrada Familia is complete. In Gaudí's design drawings, there are a total of 18 towers, of which 6 are main towers. The currently capped Virgin Mary Tower is 138 meters high and adjacent to the 172-meter-high Center tower of Jesus Christ. The tower is the second tallest of 18 towers designed by Gaudí, the largest of the nine that have been built, and the first to be topped out since 1976.
Previously, it was revealed that the Sagrada Familia will be completed in 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death. But Spanish media reported that the Sagrada Familia was forced to close for nearly a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the number of tourists in Barcelona, which plummeted from 4.7 million to 764,000 last year. As tourism revenues plummet, the goal of completion by 2026 is also far away.
Still, the unveiling of the "Star of Bethlehem" caused social media to boil over. As early as November 9, when the "Star of Bethlehem" began to be installed on the Santa Maria Maggiore, the official Twitter account of the Sagrada Familia posted the news, calling it a "historic moment".
Spanning 140 years, the Sagrada Familia
When seeing the video of the lighting day of the "Star of Bethlehem", Chen Fei, an architect and founder of Teyama SOCIARCH, found that not only the construction methods had been modernized, but even many details inside the church had changed.
"For example, the main tower and the internal staircase scheme, how to see how to feel is not Gaudí's original plan, this lightweight glass plus steel structure is too modern." Chen Fei believes that compared with the traditional masonry spiral staircase of another tower, the single cantilevered rotating folding board staircase of the Santa Maria, although it is quite laborious to do, is still a bit simple compared to before, "The design of the railing is also detailed, but it is incomparable with classical architecture." ”
He remembered that the British engineering consultancy ARUP had mentioned when it took over the sagrada familia project that if gaudí's traditional masonry structure design was followed, it could not match the bearing capacity of the foundation, and the subway was built next to the church, which also made the internal structure design lightweight.
Seven of the works of architect Gaudí are listed as World Heritage Sites, but the Sagrada Familia, which exhausted the architect's 43 years of hard work, has never been completed. Nearly a hundred years after his death, architects and engineers of different eras are still being challenged.
The Sagrada Familia was designed and built in 1882 under the auspices of Paul Vera and taken over in 1883 by his 31-year-old student Gaudí. The design of the Sagrada Familia is unique, the old Gothic churches in Europe have always been symmetrical, harmonious and stable, but Gaudí broke with naturalistic ideas and tried to use asymmetrical, conflicting designs. The whole building does not have a straight line, a large number of spirals, cones, curves and parabolas, making the building appear vivid and natural, with vitality.
During Gaudí's lifetime, he drew drawings of the entire building shape, architectural plan, interior design of each hall, conceived the three main facades of the church, made a number of plaster models, and personally presided over the completion of the temple façade, the "birth façade", the bell tower symbolizing the 12 saints, and the doors and windows, but still only about 20% of the construction was completed.
After Gaudí's death, some of the materials, manuscripts, and models were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. Numerous architects followed suit and continued to participate in the construction of the church. For subsequent architects, the architectural form, structure and form of the Sagrada Familia have been basically fixed and are an unchanged part of the construction. However, architectural decoration has changed with time and the personal aesthetics and understandings of different architects.
For example, the Spanish artist Subillac, who created hundreds of sculptures and four bronze doors for the cathedral in the nearly 20 years from 1987 to 2005, is more minimalist and abstract than Gaudí.com.
In the selection of church materials, with the progress of the times and the change of construction technology, it is also changing. When Gaudí created the Birth Façade in 1894, the walls were built of stone and lime mortar. In the 1920s, reinforced concrete appeared, and this material appeared in large numbers on church vaults and spires, and replaced masonry and limestone to fill church columns.
"This is the charm of an architectural project that spans centuries and leaves behind the characteristics of each era." Chen Fei said.
Gaudí's "change" and "unchanged"
Spanning the late 19th to the 21st century, the Sagrada Familia has also witnessed the architectural world move from the inefficient artisanal era to the digital age. In the early days, architects in Gaudí's era made three-dimensional physical models by hand, and today, architectural designers have skillfully used three-dimensional parameter models to design architectural drawings with computers, which has greatly increased in both fineness and efficiency.
Workers more than a hundred years ago relied on manual grinding and needed to be revised repeatedly. On today's construction sites, efficient and accurate crane control systems, as well as digital construction methods with three-dimensional printing technology, make the construction process and technology completely updated.
But no matter what era, the construction of the Sagrada Familia has always been difficult. With more than a century of architecture, architects and engineering teams constantly renewing, and being able to follow Gaudí's design became the biggest challenge.
In his lifetime, Gaudí understood that he would not see the day when the church was completed, so he made a comprehensive plan for the overall construction early and built a 1:10 model, which allowed future generations of architects to accurately follow Gaudí's architectural concept and complete the vast project.
Imagine that in Gaudí's time, it was a difficult task to accurately install this "Star of Bethlehem" to the 138-meter-high spire. But today, in 2021, a crane, under computer control, has carefully and precisely accomplished this mission.
When will this world-renowned cathedral be completed? In response to this question, Jodi Farley, the seventh chief architect of the Sagrada Familia, said, "We cannot give any estimated time because we do not know how visitors will recover in the coming years." He said the construction of the Sagrada Familia was funded only by private donations and visitor tickets.
Fari, a native of Barcelona who joined the Sagrada Familia construction team in 1990 and was appointed chief architect in 2012, told the media that before the pandemic, he led a team that included 27 architects and hundreds of engineers, and now there are only 5 architects left, with about 16 engineers.
"Completing the construction of the Sagrada Familia is both a love and a great responsibility for us. It is an iconic project, a building that has attracted worldwide attention. Farley, 62, said that how to study from the documents, sketches, design drawings and models left by Gaudí, build the model, and finally complete the construction of the church is the tribute and pursuit of Gaudí's legend by his generation of architects.