After we'd completed the tower tour we headed downstairs to a new museum exhibition about Gaudi's legacy. This museum had not been set up last year and only opened this January so we were thrilled to learn more about how Gaudi's plans have been faithfully carried out just as he planned.
Gaudi lived and breathed his plans for his special cathedral but he also left very explicit instructions, drawings and many models of his ideas. Engineers, builders, sculptors and other artisans were able to use these to carry out Gaudi's flamboyant ideas.
The exhibition included Gaudi's work desk, plans and various scaled models made in plaster that Gaudi had built as he tested some of his engineering ideas to see if they were possible.
Following Gaudi's untimely death in 1926, many people thought that the cathedral work would be abandoned but many patrons raised funds to continue Gaudi's ambitious project. The government also recognised Gaudi as a uniquely gifted man and motivated the public to support the ongoing costs. Today tourists and locals who visit the site contribute even further to the completion costs and Gaudi's ideas and creative genius continue to be realised as work on the cathedral proceeds.
Nor have Gaudi's plans been altered and this is because of Gaudi's dedication and all consuming passion for La Sagrada Familia Cathedral.
Gaudi left hundreds of paintings, sculptures, models and notes about all of his concepts and ideas. He also performed engineering tests on his scaled models to discover and prove that his 'outlandish' ideas would work technically. These have become the blueprints, instructions and guides for those carrying out the completion works on this edifice.
Gaudi was not only an audacious ideas man but he was a whiz at applying and describing geometry theories that inform today's builders, architects, engineers and artisans as they work together to complete what Gaudi envisioned so long ago.
In the new museum display, we were able to view some of the drawings, plans and experimental scale models which Gaudi built to test his theories and to prove that his 'outlandish' ideas would work technically. Gaudi was not only an audacious ideas man but he was also a whiz at applying geometry theories in his designs.
As we left the cathedral we noticed another of Gaudi's creative ideas. We looked down upon a beautiful marble floor entrance vestibule area. Within the marble tiles we saw an inlay-sketch of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a colt, people waving palm leaves and others laying their cloaks on the roadway as they welcome Jesus. What a powerful reminder of an event which Isaiah has spoken about thousands of years before it took place.
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