60 Minutes on Antoni Gaudí and the Sagrada Família.

And speaking of modern churches… I recently had a conversation about St. Peter’s Basilica with a woman who just had been to Barcelona, in the course of which she told me that she found Antoni Gaudí’s famous church of the Holy Family (‘Sagrada Família’ in Catalan) “hideous”. I cannot judge myself, since I have never been to see it; from the pictures, I cannot decide if I particularly want to see it. In any case, today I stumbled on this interesting video from 60 Minutes about the church, its lengthy and on-going (131 years and counting!) construction, and its famous architect, who devoted nearly his entire life to the project. Underneath the main video on the program’s website are links to four supplementary videos: in the first, the reporter gets a tour of the construction zone on the roof from the current executive architect, New Zealander Mark Burry, who has been involved with the project since 1977. There follow three interview pieces on Gaudí himself with his biographer Gijs van Hensbergen, who also appears in the main story.