In-spired thinking: Spain's Sagrada Familia - which is still unfinished after 123 years - is at last being completed with the help of state-of-the-art software technology

摘要

FOR MOST ENGINEERS Barcelona is synonymous with Antoni Gaudi, the genius who dreamed up the unfinished 'shaggy gothic' masterpiece La Sagrada Familia. Gaudi - a reclusive eccentric who rarely and reluctantly left his native Catalonia - designed Sagrada Familia for its crusty stone and ceramic spires that soar like primeval trees. He planned two grand portals with sculpture as elaborate as any in the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe. Work started in 1882, and the project is still estimated to be many years from completion. But even though Gaudi died in 1926 aged 74, and his office and original drawings were destroyed in the anti-Catholic backlash following the Spanish Civil War in 1936, designers currently working on the cathedral are using state-of-the-art software technology to help interpret his original designs and hasten its completion.