by Unknown
Though the cathedral was as rooted to the earth as any man-made structure could be, it also appeared to be growing right in front of one’s eyes. From every column and arch and spire dripped the most intricate symbologies, drawn from the natural world: turtles, chameleons, oxen, mules, snakes, birds, eggs; the signs of the zodiac. Then there were the plants: leaves, fronds, branches and stems, entire cypress trees. And a human statuary that seemed without end. Musician angels. Adoring shepherds. The three kings of the Orient. Mary, crowned by Jesus, as Saint Joseph looks on. And despite the density of detail, no one element ever competes with another: all harmonize, like the myriad instruments in a symphony orchestra.
Arthur and Claire walked its circumference, weaving through crowds of tourists, taking in the Passion Façade to the east and the incomplete Glory Façade to the south. Claire took pictures with her mobile phone. They stayed silent, tacitly knowing that simple words of surprise and delight might trivialize the experience.
Only when they climbed into another cab did Claire exclaim, “My God! Did a man build that? What kind of a mind could conceive this?”
25
Barcelona, 1883
He cut a rather imperious figure, this thirty year old, a man finding his stride in the hard, competitive world of professional architecture in a city that defined itself as Europe’s architectural jewel.
He already had a reputation as a rising star and carried himself erect, head up, shoulders back, and legs striding purposefully. Though far from tall and not at all handsome, he had a way of turning heads. It was his confident demeanor, his reddish hair, imposing beard, and his glorious blue eyes.
He left his apartment building, savoring the warm autumn air with its aromas of baked bread and roasted meats, and began walking down the narrow carrer del Call. He had an hour until his appointment in the Eixample district, and set a moderate pace to keep on time.
“Good day, Senyor Gaudí,” a tailor called out from his open-fronted shop.
He had been lost in thought and he replied with a start. “Good day. Yes, it is. A fine day. Not a cloud in the sky.”
He had much on his mind. In the five years since receiving his qualifications, new architectural commissions were coming in fast. One was a workers cooperative, La Obrera Mataronense; another, Casa Vincens, a large private residence in the Gràcia district; and a hunting pavilion for an influential industrialist, Eusebi Güell, who hinted that there could be more family projects if things went well. Today’s meeting was something of a nuisance. A book dealer named Bocabella, whom he had never met but who was widely regarded as a flagrant eccentric, had begun a personally financed ecclesiastical project: a new cathedral in a city that already had one, the venerable Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia.
Apparently, there was a problem with the first architect hired for the project. Francisco de Paula del Villar had lasted only a year, throwing up his hands in frustration over his dealings with Bocabella. Juan Martorell, one of Gaudí’s old professors and a champion of the young man’s enormous talents, had put him forward, and Gaudí, only out of respect, agreed to take a meeting with the bookseller.
Approaching the building site just north of the carriage-laden and fashionable Avinguda Diagonal, Gaudí saw the better part of a hundred workers milling around a large scrubby lot. A partial foundation had been laid but it was impossible to ascertain any specific design. He had heard vague talk about a neo-Gothic structure but hadn’t given it a thought; he had his own projects to worry about.
Bocabella spotted him first and rushed over to greet his visitor.
From a distance he shouted, “You must be Gaudí—I was told you had red hair and you are the only red-haired man I see!”
Bocabella had a shock of white hair and a bushy white mustache. He was twice Gaudí’s age but moved like a much younger man, with small quick steps and seemingly boundless energy. When he was within hand-shaking distance he pulled up and stared.
“This is Providence, Senyor! There is no other explanation. Just the other night I dreamed that the man who would come to save my project, which this scoundrel Villar has tried to destroy, would have blue eyes! You have the bluest eyes I have ever seen!”
Gaudí did not know how to respond other than simply to say, “Well, I am pleased to meet you, sir. Your work and your philanthropy on behalf of the church are well known to me.”
Bocabella was the founder of the Asociación Espiritual de Devotos de San José, a group dedicated to honoring Saint Joseph, whom they believed had never received the same level of respect as the Virgin Mary. “The whole family is important!” Bocabella would fume. “This is not to diminish in any way the Holy Mother and the Holy Child. But Joseph was Mary’s husband and nothing is more important than the family in our Christian way of life. It is especially important for the poor and unfortunate among us. This will be a temple for the poor!”
His church would be called Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, although everyone called it by its shortened name. Work had begun in 1882. Villar had conceived the church to be in the Gothic revival tradition, done in a standard cathedral form.
Gaudí was taken on a tour of the construction site. He peered into the excavated shell of a crypt, inspected the foundations and noted the desultory working habits of the stonemasons.
“Yes, Senyor,” Bocabella agreed. “The men are like a ship without a rudder. I cannot supervise them. I know books. I know nothing about stones.”
Gaudí reviewed Villar’s architectural plans and silently dismissed them as ordinary and uninspired. Gaudí already had formed a strong esthetic style, embracing the possibilities of modernism and venturing beyond it to incorporate ever more naturalistic features. He couldn’t walk through a park without plucking a tulip to examine its stem or come upon a dead bird without studying its wings. A physician friend once ushered him into the anatomy suite of the medical school to witness a human skeleton stripped of its flesh.
At the end of the tour, Bocabella impetuously offered him the commission on the spot.
“You are the man for this, Senyor Gaudí. I have no doubt. Will you take on this temple? Will you help me create my vision?”
Gaudí politely answered that he would consider the offer but advised Bocabella that he was extremely busy and not at all sure he could do a project of this size and scope the justice it required. He made it clear, however, that in the unlikely event he were to accept, he would not be a slave to Villar’s design. He would have to have complete architectural control.
Bocabella eagerly nodded. “When will I have your answer?” he pressed.
“I am off for a brief respite to Montserrat,” Gaudí answered. “You will have my reply when I return.”
“Montserrat!” the bookseller exclaimed. “My dear Gaudí, I knew you were the right man! I make many pilgrimages every year to Montserrat, and it was during such a pilgrimage that I gazed on an image of the Holy Family in a painting and had my revelation—that I must build a temple in their honor. Go to Montserrat and pray. I am sure you will have good news for me.”
#
Gaudí packed a small knapsack for his trip. After a half-day carriage ride and long hike up the well-traveled mountain trail, he found himself at the monastery where the abbot, Miguel Muntadas, greeted him warmly. Muntadas was as ancient as the sanctuary, he liked to say. He’d been abbot for thirty years, a visionary with a strong sense of how to rebuild from the destruction wreaked upon Montserrat by the French. Napoleon’s army had burned it down and blown up a group of buildings in 1812, leaving the shrine in ruins. Years earlier, Muntadas had learned that this avid young pilgrim was an architect and he had bent his ear and picked his brain during each of Gaudí’s visits.
Before Gaudí could even put his backpack down and have a drink of water, the abbot, who was sprightly for his age, pulled him by the sleeve to show him the new plans. Here, a rack railway to ferry pilgrims; over there, the new basilica.
“I have been told t
hat Pope Leo is opening his purse for us,” the abbot said happily. “A committee has been formed. The choice of the architect for the basilica is to be Villar. I suggested you but they wanted someone more seasoned, I’m afraid. Do you approve of Villar?”
Gaudí grunted. “He’ll do a good job.”
“Maybe when we dig a great hole for the crypt of the new church we will find the Holy Grail!” the abbot said, repeating an oft-made jest.
Though most pilgrims were made to pitch tents and shift for themselves, Gaudí was afforded the privilege of his own cell in the monk’s dormitory, where he now unpacked his few belongings and laid on the mattress to rest.
To his chagrin he found himself crying. He willfully staunched the flow of tears and clenched fists at his own weakness.
He had to get over her—to purge her from his mind!
He had always been introverted, a poor conversationalist, someone more comfortable reading and sketching than talking to another. And he was certainly no ladies man. In fact, he had never been with a woman. Yet his perspective on life changed when he became the protective uncle of his little niece, Rosita, and the notion of female companionship and forming a proper family entered his mind.
A friend, Salvador Pagés, of Mataró, had made him an introduction in that town to a Senyor Moreu, who had two single daughters. There he met Josefa, a slim beauty who went by the nickname Pepeta. Gaudí was smitten. Pepeta had fine features and reddish-gold hair, almost mahogany in color. She sang, played the piano, and was sporty with a love of swimming in the sea, daring for a girl, some said; and she was a freethinker who even read Republican newspapers!
Though massively timid, Gaudí eventually plucked up every ounce of courage to propose marriage—only to learn she was already engaged to another, a successful wool merchant. Devastated, he retreated to his inner world to sort through his grief and through intense prayer he scourged himself, not with nettles or whips but with mental admonition.
He was not worthy. If Pepeta rejected him, then he would reject women. And he would go further. He would adopt the life of the leading Spanish mystics, who were espousing the Living Flame of Love, the spiritual path leading one toward God through denial of the flesh. He would eschew the companionship of women forever. He would fast and deny himself meat. He would purge himself with copious water. Most of all, he would work!
And when tears would well up over a love lost or a road not taken he simply bore down and cut off these thoughts.
He climbed off the bed and knelt and prayed.
In the quiet of the late evening, after taking evening prayer with the monks in their makeshift church, Gaudí took a small walk in the refreshing air. Strolling through some wild greenery on the edge of the grounds, he mused over the abbot’s flippant remark about the Grail.
That Montserrat long had been touted as one of the possible resting places of the Grail was no secret. In fact the monks and even the abbot had slyly capitalized on the notion to increase pilgrimages and donations. Gaudí made a mental note that indeed he should return to the mountain when the excavations began so he could peer into the ground.
His ramble took him to the Chapel of Sant Iscle, one of his favorite spots on the mountain. He found the little structure perfect in every way, a primitive piece of architecture that had one purpose it fulfilled brilliantly: to create a simple space to glorify God and be one with prayer. He knew he would have the chapel to himself since the monks soon would be retiring for the night. Before he entered, he stubbed out his cigar and left it on a flat rock.
It was getting fairly dark so he fumbled in his pocket for matches and struck one to light a candle. As always, there was no place to sit. The monks would kneel and prostrate themselves in front of the altar on a reed mat and he would do the same. But the mat was rolled up and standing against one of the walls and he could see why: one end was singed and partially burned through, a casualty, he suspected, from a tipped candle. One of the benefits of an all-stone structure is that there is precious little to burn.
He lit the altar candles and admired the primitive simplicity of the large iron cross. There was nothing here to distract from one’s devotions, not even the image of the Christ suffering for one’s sins. He decided to perform more personal prayer. Having allowed Pepeta to creep into his thoughts he felt particularly weak and in need of a bracing dose of spiritual fortitude.
Lowering himself to the cool stones, he bowed his head, yet before he could say his first Hail Mary he was distracted by something. The fingers of his right hand had sunk into an indentation in one of the stone tiles, and when he raised himself to have a look he saw a similar groove by his left hand.
Out of curiosity he stood, and his keen eye immediately spotted two more indentations a body’s length away from the altar on the adjacent stone. He plucked one of the altar candles from its holder and held it beside each of the grooves as he probed them with his finger. These were clearly man-made, precise, chiseled, smoothed.
Then another anomaly caught his eye. He was a master of color, a master of texture, exquisitely schooled in construction techniques. The mortar in between the adjacent stones didn’t seem right. It was coarser than all the other lines of mortar and half a shade lighter. He put the candle down on its base, took out his penknife and used the small blade to scrape at the mortar stripe. It was crumbly and came up in dollops. The line of mortar to its right was as unyielding as the stone itself.
He stood again and folded the knife.
He stared at the grooves and when the epiphany struck he went to the chapel door and looked out to make sure no one was coming.
Lying upon the stones, he found the indentations with each hand and foot. Then he yanked his arms down hard as if pulling himself up to the top of a cliff.
He felt the mortar crack and pulled harder. The stone nearest the altar began to slide and at once one end dropped with a loud thud into a cavity, tipping him headfirst down an incline.
Startled, he pushed himself up and grabbed the candle.
A rectangular hole!
With all his strength he lifted the stone tile away and slid it to one side.
He reached into the hole and touched something smooth, something warm, warmer than the surrounding stones, warmer than his own hand. He pulled it out and placed it on his lap, lifting the candle to it.
Instantly, he knew what it was.
What this had to be.
“My God,” he sobbed. “My God, my God, my God.”
He was breathing so heavily he thought he would pass out.
He struggled to compose himself, struggled to decide what he should do.
As though by instinct, he ripped out a sheet from his omnipresent pocket notebook and wrote some simple words, folded the paper, and placed it in the cavity. Then he replaced the stone tile and using his skills, scooped up the remnants of the ersatz mortar and blended it with some of the sandy soil from outside the chapel, mixed with some saliva. He smoothed the new mortar with his penknife, put the bowl under his jacket, and practically ran back to his cell.
He would spend a lifetime of penance for what he did that night. It was not his to take or his to possess but alone in his simple monk’s cell he sat all night staring at it and marveling at its extraordinary properties.
Was it an accident he had found it?
Or was it divine providence?
No sooner had his Bocabella approached him to do what no modern man had done—build a new cathedral—than he had found it!
Surely he was being called to a higher purpose.
26
High on a hill overlooking the city, Parc Güell would have been rural in Gaudí’s day, but now it was contiguous with Barcelona’s sprawl. Walking uphill from the taxi stand into the park, Arthur and Claire found the breezes a little stiffer and the air a little cooler.
The museum was the house where Gaudí had lived with his niece for twenty years. It was pink and tropical with lime green shutters and a churchlike spire adorned with a
cross. The house was small compared to Eusebi Güell’s nearby residence and stood alone with expansive views down to the sea. The park was one of Güell’s few unsuccessful commercial ventures: planned as a housing site intended to lure wealthy city dwellers to sixty luxury houses, there were no buyers. Even the pink show house went unsold, and Güell ultimately persuaded Gaudí to buy it at a knockdown price.
They had a few minutes, so Arthur and Claire took the ground-level tour of the living quarters and found it beautiful in a spare and ascetic sort of way, the walls adorned by crucifixes. At the appointed time, they presented themselves to the woman at the reception desk and were directed up the stairs to the archive.
Isabella Bellver was alone in the Gaudí library. Glass-fronted white bookcases on every possible vertical surface cut into the already small space. If it weren’t for a high-beamed ceiling and glorious city view, the room would have been claustrophobic.
The librarian, in her sixties with white hair clipped into a ponytail and wearing a fashionable dress, seemed agreeable enough receiving visitors but made it clear that last-minute appointments were not how things were done.
“Ordinarily, we get formal requests by letter or our website well in advance, outlining the specific reason a scholar or researcher needs to use the archive. We like to approve all reasonable requests, of course, but as you can see, our space is quite limited so we must control the visitation.”
“I completely understand,” Arthur said, flashing his best smile.
The librarian softened. “Alvar at the bookstore is a nice man so I did him a courtesy. Fortunately, there are no researchers here this afternoon, as you can see. Tell me, how I can help you?”
