…

The interiors creative use of color, space, and stone work is jaw dropping.

A tip try the coffee shops and restaurants of the area delicious food

Place isnt fully renovated, wasted money.

These are the reviews of a, let’s say, church. They transcend the obvious and alacratize into the pitiful. As most reviews go, they do a good job of summing up everything wrong with humanity. 

When I stood outside this, let’s say, church, for the first time, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I had seen nothing like it. So I walked away—it’s how I deal with my emotions. It took me two years to realize I had walked away from one of the greatest undertakings in human creativity. 

As far as records go, there’s nothing special about the place. For one, it was consecrated—there I said it—only 10 years ago: a minor basilica. So nothing deeply pious and shit. By relative measure of size for a church, it’s far from the largest. It looks grand—if Van Gogh’s starry night were a building, but there was something else unassuredly peaceable about it. And that’s what I still remember:

It was under construction. 

The basilisca (sic) [now you know why I went with church] has been under construction for 138 years. As much as the third review on top pisses me off, it is the most praiseworthy of the lot. 

When Antoni Gaudi took responsibility as chief architect of the Sagrada Família, he was 30—a lengthy career ahead of him. He was already involved in most stonewallable works of architecture across Barcelona. The Sagrada Familia, he decided, would be his Magnum opus. Nerd.

There was just one problem, though.

Gaudi would never see his most important work to completion.

And
he
knew
that.

And he didn’t care because his client didn’t stifle him with deadlines and dickery. 

The client?

God.

This isn’t about the Four-point-seven-starred languorously lanky marvel that is the Basílica de la Sagrada Família as much as Antoni Gaudi’s embodiment of the creative process. Gaudi focused all his energy on the process to an extent that a delay only meant the process was becoming better. From the start, it was never about the completion as much as about the creation. It wasn’t about perfection as much as about celebration.

Writers, for one, are obsessed with emphasizing the process over the outcome, especially after they have had an outcome. Process, I believed, was the phlebotomy of creativity, a zombiesque crawl to an unknown destination. Turns out it’s more like prayer, a roadless return to the source.

Gaudi’s process has a godliness to it. This is impercipient to productivity and its obsession to finish. In a world greased by the lube of efficiency, rush is fake orgasm.

Tales about Picasso and his two-minute, ten thousand dollar paper napkin sketch miss the point. Picasso never intended to sell it (the legend ends with his thrashing it). He quoting an absurd price was a symbolism for the process. For how priceless the process ought to be. Sure, Picasso was a productivity beast, but he never let that get in the way of his creation. One lollygagger who was famous for leaving most things unfinished was Leonardo da Vinci. It’s a miracle he finished the Mona Lisa. He was on it for 20 years. It’s hard to fathom anything like that is even possible anymore. It’s what makes the architect whose name you possibly never heard until now one of the most creative people that lived. A hundred years into his death, his work is work in progress.

Art reflects timelessness because that’s what went into it. At a time when we measure our lives by the number of things we finish, we need some things we will never finish. To give it our dedication and divinity despite that. To undertake God’s project.

Originality consists of returning to the origin.
– Anton Gaudi