An architect in Gaudi's footsteps...

Mark Burry was an architect in his twenties , who believed Gaudi's 'Sagrada Familia' had long since been abandoned, when he became part of the architectural team there, a family of sorts,he claims. Lydia O'Kane caught up with him in Barcelona and asked him how he first got involved in what became a passionate love affair :"I had an interview with the two architect directors, both of whom were getting on to 90 years old, who had worked with Gaudi when they were young ..and I had two questions for them, one was where was the authority to continue the building coming from, with all the drawings burnt and all the models broken. But also how do you explain to builders what they have to do each day...and they pointed to the broken models... they had seen Gaudi working on these models and knew he had a system and so my story starts there..."
Experiencing Gaudi's work in real life rather than through photographs, the building resonates with values remarks Architect Burry, commenting how one of his jobs is to lead the team completing the Passion facade: "..the border where the architecture stops and the art starts ..it supports Christian art ..it's not a tourist destination ...the interior is complete, this is absolutely the right moment for the Pope to come and turn the building from a building site..into a fully functioning Basilica ..."
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