
Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia gets building permit after 137 years - antigizmo
https://apnews.com/ff973c5c769c4d1d872255f04c6c1f11
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JorgeGT
The article misses an important bit of info: when the construction started,
the Sagrada Familia was not in Barcelona, but in an independent municipality,
Sant Martí de Provençals. It was to this municipality that the building permit
was requested, not to Barcelona, which would annex the municipality and with
it, the Sagrada Familia, 15 years later. Plus, most of the documentation
regarding the building, including plans, scale models etc. were destroyed in a
fire caused by anarchists when the Civil War started. The story is more
complex than just incompetent bureaucracy.

~~~
mevile
I would listen to a podcast episode or read a book about this. It sounds like
an interesting story!

~~~
eduren
99% Invisible recently did an episode about its history:
[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/la-sagrada-
familia-2/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/la-sagrada-familia-2/)

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dzdt
The engineering work for Sagrada Familia was insanely clever. Gaudi build a
scale model including accurate weights for the building materials, upside-
down, out of strings and weights. That way he could design non-vertical
pillars that branch like trees and where all the stresses were carried by
compression through the stonework. It is really a marvel of pre-computer
technical design!

[1]
[https://memetician.livejournal.com/201202.html](https://memetician.livejournal.com/201202.html)

[2] [https://criticalista.com/2012/08/16/gaudis-hanging-chain-
mod...](https://criticalista.com/2012/08/16/gaudis-hanging-chain-models-
parametric-design-avant-la-lettre/)

~~~
fjsolwmv
Why are upside down strings an accurate model for compressed stone?

~~~
amluto
To an excellent approximation, a structure made entirely of string and weights
has tension on the strings but no shear stress on the string. (This is because
string is floppy — if you pull gently on a string, you’ll pull the other end
toward you but not sideways.). If the whole structure dangles without moving,
that means that all the forces (tension and gravity) balance everywhere. If
you flip the sign of all forces, tension turns into compression, gravity pulls
the other way, there is still no shear, and the whole thing still stays put.
Now you have an upside down cathedral with upside down gravity, which is more
or less the same thing as a right side up cathedral with right side up
gravity.

There are plenty of ways this can go wrong. The little weights Gaudí used
might not correctly model the weight of the stone. The whole thing might be
unstable under inevitable sideways forces from wind and such, although one
could blow on the string model to make sure it doesn’t start swinging to
approximate this. And the string model probably doesn’t say much about the
distribution of compression loads in the stone, especially if the overall
structure is not statically determinate.

~~~
appleflaxen
why is this approximate and not exact?

~~~
amluto
Strings really do have some stiffness. In a piano, this causes harmonics to be
slightly more than an octave apart, leading to stretched tuning. Cotton
strings won’t be as still as metal strings, but the effect still exists.

Another issue is that Gaudí used a bunch of little weights instead of weighted
strings. This means that he’s modeling stone columns with all the weight
concentrated in a few places, which isn’t quite right.

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Scoundreller
My favourite part of the tour was when they mention that Gaudi died in a tram
accident, without any further details.

So I had to research that part on my own.

Trams at the time ran at around 10kph.

Supposedly he saw a tram coming, took a step back and got hit by another tram.

As his main concerns were architecture and the church, he looked homeless.

Some time after the accident, someone did call for a doctor who declared him
dead.

Some time later, he was brought to a hospital, provided the care that a beggar
would receive and died 3 days later. Only being identified some time after
being admitted.

Given that it was 1926 and he was almost 74, it’s hard to say how much
immediate care would have helped anyway.

~~~
soulofmischief
> As his main concerns were architecture and the church, he looked homeless.

Career goals. I feel like I'm already halfway there.

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dbetteridge
The company I work for has actually been doing the engineering design work to
finish the building. Pretty amazing how much was accomplished back in the day
without computer aid.

[https://www.arup.com/projects/sagrada-
familia](https://www.arup.com/projects/sagrada-familia)

~~~
100k
I visited a week ago, and it was one of the most awe-inspiring buildings I've
ever been in. It gave me hope for humanity that we still have the ambition to
complete multi-generational projects like this. Thank you for your
contribution!

~~~
dbetteridge
Wish I could say I've worked on it personally! Have to agree that it's an
amazing project

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6nf
I found this old rendering of what still needs to be built - the scale is just
fantastic!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69COc7UhvbY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69COc7UhvbY)

~~~
dmos62
Wow. Just when I think it's done, another structure emerges, bigger than the
last. It's pretty impressive that we can sustain projects like these when they
offer only cultural value.

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Schiphol
Many locals (and at any rate this local) see the Sagrada Família as it
currently is as a rather unhappy travesty. There are no construction plans by
Gaudí, just a few sketches, and what architects are doing is mostly theme-park
architecture: making concrete look like stone, for example. It would have been
much preferable to leave it as it was in 1926.

~~~
yiyus
Most cathedrals took generations to build and diverged from the initial plans
during their construction. It is not uncommon that even architectonic styles
changed, and the final result was a mixture of romanic and gothic, for
example.

Sagrada Familia may be an unhappy travesty, but every cathedral is, and few
have such a consistent style. Even our cities are unhappy travesties, and I do
not think that leaving the unfinished works of deceased architects unfinished
would change that.

You have all the right to dislike how it is being done, and it may be not
exactly what Gaudí thought, but trying to finish it was, in my opinion, the
right decision. When you are in the middle of a task that will take
generations, it makes sense trying to continue even if some accident happens,
like your main architect getting killed by a tram or documents getting lost.

~~~
Schiphol
I'd say our conception of art, and architecture in particular, has changed
substantially since the heyday of the Gothic cathedral. We now don't think of
buildings as a communal, multigenerational effort.

> every cathedral is

Actually, contemporary cathedrals (of which more than a few have been built in
the XXth and XXIst centuries) are typically completed in a reasonable
timeframe. 5 years for Moneo's Our Lady of the Angels; 3 years for Hartman's
Cathedral of Christ the Light, and so on.

By the way, the Sagrada Família is not a cathedral, but a basilica, but that
is neither here nor there :)

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eddiezane
Had the privilege of going after this past KubeCon EU (which was in Barcelona
a few weeks ago). It was the most awe inspiring building I've ever seen. A
true modern wonder. Wound up just sitting in the pews for a while taking it
all.

I took some photos but they definitely don't do it anywhere close to justice.

[https://photos.app.goo.gl/Hx2qwsc5yaXGPBfm8](https://photos.app.goo.gl/Hx2qwsc5yaXGPBfm8)

~~~
ebg13
In order to really capture the beauty of the interior, you have to pick the
right angle and then force your camera to accentuate color. The interior is
magical in a way that can be hard for a point-and-shoot to capture without
fiddling. Of course, the internet being what it is, a google image search for
"sagrada familia interior" brings up a few great examples like
[https://cdn.barcelonalowdown.com/barcelona-
lowdown/uploads/2...](https://cdn.barcelonalowdown.com/barcelona-
lowdown/uploads/2017/09/sagrada-familia-interior-lights.jpg)

~~~
maguirre
Absolutely. Add to that the fact that the inside looks different at different
times of the day due to which windows accentuate the inside.

~~~
EugeneOZ
Hm, really, you are right. Now I need to visit Sagrada Familia again, multiple
times - at different hours. And it's a good thing :) Thanks!

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dsparkman
Yeah, the whole affair was about Barcelona getting a cut of the money from
Sagrada Familia.

> Barcelona officials said the city will be paid 4.6 million euros ($5.2
> million) in fees under an agreement negotiated with a foundation devoted to
> completing and preserving La Sagrada Familia.

~~~
dmix
Yeah I was waiting for the article to explain why the building permit mattered
until they mentioned the fee millions of tourists pay to go see it every day
and it became obvious the city just wanted a piece of that.

Why else would they demand $5.2M for a building permit.

~~~
stan_rogers
Why should a church get a free ride?

~~~
dang
" _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
says, not a weaker one that 's easier to criticize. Assume good faith._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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aecorredor
Nice. I went to la sagrada familia today and this becomes hacker news top
post.

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ddingus
[https://youtu.be/IAiB_T2kqbc](https://youtu.be/IAiB_T2kqbc)

There are various live performances worth a listen.

I am linking just because this project is awesome and some moving music just
makes sense.

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matt-attack
"Bureaucrats file paperwork! On other news..."

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briandear
That’s still faster than getting a permit in San Francisco.

~~~
781
And look at that height... This would never be approved in SF, ruins the local
character.

