Reaching For The Sky

I am watching a multipart documentary now about the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. This series is being released weekly on the YouTube channel betevé; I am viewing in Catalan with Catalan subtitles for language input practice. The church has been under construction for 143 years now and as the end of October it is the tallest church in the world. The series has many interviews and lots of good imagery ranging from recent drone flights to historical photos from the beginning of the 20th century. A few thoughts:

• I marvel at the continuity of the detailed craftwork over 140 plus years. It is a direct link with the wonderful craft traditions flourishing in Barcelona and Catalunya in the latter half of the 19th century.

• On a completely different tack, I have started a book entitled Capital’s Grave: Neofeudalism and the New Class Struggle, by Jodi Dean. As the title suggests, it is a very left-wing analysis of contemporary socioeconomics. One of the points she makes early on is that being a worker is not a source of identity anymore, since people don’t see social production and collective energy emerging from their efforts. This is the exact opposite of what working on the Sagrada Família must be like.

• The Sagrada Família is now the most visited location in Spain, with over 4.8 million visitors in 2024. This sets up a paradox — how does one arrive at a reverential state in a space that is so crowded, despite all the spiritual affordances that are built into the architecture?