VISUAL: Screenshot – la Sagrada Familia. Professor Mark Burry discusses his role in an international team working towards completing Gaudi’s famous Basilica in Barcelona.
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry, Director of Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory, RMIT University speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: The Sagrada Familia Church was proposed as a new church for the new part of Barcelona that was emerging ...
VISUAL: Camera shows an aerial shot of Barcelona and the Sagrada Familia in the centre of the city. The camera moves in closer towards the church, changing angles to show the church from a different side.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... in the middle of the 19th Century. Gaudi worked on the project for 43 years from 1883 to 1926 when unfortunately he was run over by a tram when he was aged 74.
VISUAL: Camera shows intricate detail and sculptures on the side of church building panning up to show the spires with cranes surrounding the building.
Prof. Mark Burry: So it’s not often that an architect has a project dominating their entire career effectively ...
VISUAL: Camera shows close-up of a sculpture in the side of the building depicting Jesus as a young boy with Joseph before pulling back to show the surrounding sculptures and detail.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... but even more extraordinary is that it wasn’t a building that Gaudi started and it wasn’t finished in his time either.
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: During the civil war Gaudi’s workshop, which was on?site, was attacked by vandals and set on fire ...
VISUAL: Camera shows aerial shot of large room with large plaster models of various aspects of the church.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... and the models that he used, the large-scale plaster models which hold all the secrets were broken ...
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... into pieces and the drawings burnt.
VISUAL: Camera shows close-up of the side of the building with words engraved along the side and a sculpture in the background, before moving upwards to show a side view of another sculpture in the wall of the church.
Prof. Mark Burry: Well, being involved in the project for 31 years I would have to admit that up until last year most ...
VISUAL: Camera shows sculpture of male in the side of the church panning up to the face of the figure.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... of those years were spent thinking only about the here and now, the difficulty of resolving the complex building, getting the next bit built.
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: And I think all of us got a shock last year when the interior was opened.
VISUAL: Camera shows two workers stood on a scaffolding platform over a square opening giving hand signals to a worker above them. Camera shot changes to show worker above winding a piece of equipment.
Prof. Mark Burry: If it took so long, why would it be a shock? It’s because ...
VISUAL: Camera shows shot from above of a worker squatting down drilling a wooden frame before changing to show a high aerial view of a worker dipping a brush in a bucket on a bench surrounded by scaffolding and work equipment.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... right up until within a few months of the Pope’s visit it ...
VISUAL: Camera pans down showing rows of large scaffolding structures before changing to a shot of workers on the top of one of the church spires with the city in the background.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... still was full of scaffolding. So if ... anyone going into the building as late as June I think ...
VISUAL: Camera pans down rows of scaffolding before changing to show a birds-eye view of cranes and scaffolding in the middle of the church structure.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... would have seen a building site. Very much a building site.
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: Then the scaffolding was removed, and suddenly in the last two or three months ...
VISUAL: Camera shows shot down the middle of the inside of the finished church building, with rows of black chairs facing towards the camera. Camera pulls back and changes view to pan over the ceiling with pillars supporting the structure.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... for the first time ever we were seeing all of the building as a whole space, and I think it was a shock to see that actually, something ...
VISUAL: Camera shows crowd of people inside of the finished church interior taking photographs and admiring the architecture. Camera pans up and changes shot to show a view across the top of the inside of the building, showing the large pillars running from floor to ceiling and the rows of chairs facing towards the front of the church.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... that had always been so far on the horizon ... over the horizon as to not even be worth thinking about was, you know, tangible.
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: I suspect there is a sense now that everybody working there ... that hope that they will be able to see the project completed in their own time on the project because it’s so palpably achievable.
VISUAL: Camera shows tour bus with an open top level turning a corner and driving up a busy street.
VISUAL: Camera shows a couple with headphones looking up at something, the female is pointing her finger in the air.
VISUAL: Camera pans across a section of the church that shows a sculpture depicting the crucifixion of Jesus before changing to show a shot of the church from a distance surrounded by city buildings.
Prof. Mark Burry: Most of us on the project are using software which is not ...
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... the first choice for architects, but it’s actually of a ...
VISUAL: Camera shows woman sat at a computer, showing a model of a section of the church on the computer screen before changing to show a close-up of the woman’s hands typing on the keyboard.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... richness that can deal with the complexity of the building. So that’s ... the last 20 years have been ...
VISUAL: Camera shows man and woman sat at a table in front of an open computer with a man stood in-between them, talking whilst pointing at the screen.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... characterised by a, sort of, digital ...
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... design and before that it was all models made by hand and drawings.
VISUAL: Camera shows three men stood in front of a large model of the church building, one of the men holds out a pen and points to a section of the model whilst talking.
Prof. Mark Burry: The way we use the computer today is much closer to the way that Gaudi modelled ...
VISUAL: Camera shows close-up of section of the church in one of the models, and a set of hands reaching in with a ruler to measure a part of the model.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... in plaster of Paris than the drawing process ...
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... so I argue actually the computer’s brought us closer to the way Gaudi worked himself.
VISUAL: Camera shows shot of three people sat at computers in a small office space with desks covered with scattered papers.
Prof. Mark Burry: In Australia we typically design the building and then we find the consultants that will help along the way, and then when we’ve got the building designed we’ll look for a builder and there’s a process ... tendering process we go through. The Sagrada Familia’s completely different ...
VISUAL: Camera shows shot from above of two workmen, one wearing a welder’s mask, the other wearing a hard hat. The two men are looking up into the camera. The shot changes to show a man with a hammer and chisel, chiselling out the base of a structure with mosaic tiles on it.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... every decision that’s made is made in concert with the builder, who’s part of the team ...
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... it’s in concert with the consultants who are also part of the team and it’s in conc ... in consultation with the people who are drawing it.
VISUAL: Camera shows three workers moving a piece of stone that is tied to a rope before bending down to peer into the gap left by the stone.
Prof. Mark Burry: We work as team, we work as a family. It means that there aren’t significant disputes.
VISUAL: Camera shows man leaning against one knee scraping down a piece of a structure before changing to show a piece being shaped with a star shaped template.
Prof. Mark Burry: Everybody has a chance to chip in at a time when it can actually affect the project ...
VISUAL: Camera shows man on a scaffold working on a piece of the project, before changing to a closer view of the same man working with a spatula-type tool.
Prof. Mark Burry: It’s not ... you’re not asking a builder to build the impossible, the builder’s already had a chance to ...
VISUAL: Camera shows Professor Mark Burry leaning in to a model section of the church, using a pen to point out something to three men stood around him looking at the model with him.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... point out whether something is viable or not. I think it points to the future, to be honest.
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: At RMIT we’ve got a very coherent group of designers.
VISUAL: Camera shows view of the church spires, with cranes in the shot around the spires.
Prof Mark Burry: I believe that we were natural choices for the Sagrada Familia because of our knowledge as a ...
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... team, but we also were very well set up with equipment. Very high end equipment with the latest software.
VISUAL: Camera shows various shots of computer graphics, with sections of the church in 3D images.
Prof. Mark Burry: The sort of things that architectural practices couldn’t’ afford at the time, and still can’t really now because of the very nature of it ...
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... and I think that’s where the Sagrada Familia was so smart, was to actually form relationships with universities that could actually access the equipment that they wouldn’t reasonably afford.
VISUAL: Camera shows aerial view of a park and buildings panning across to take in the top of the church spires in the bottom left corner. Camera changes shot to show a street lined with trees and buildings and a full view of the church in the background.
Prof. Mark Burry: There’s a generosity intrinsic, I think, in Catalonia as a nation. It doesn’t have a boundary ...
VISUAL: Camera shows side view of the church in the mid ground of the shot surrounded by the buildings of the city.
Prof. Mark Burry: ... around art or talent or whatever.
VISUAL: Professor Mark Burry speaking to camera.
Professor Mark Burry: Crucially, it’s a country with a staying power, it can start a project like that in 1882, it can lose the architect in 1926 with only a fraction of the building complete and still have the staying power and the resilience to do that. Fantastic model for us in Australia for how, you know, to get behind a cultural project of its nature.
VISUAL: Screenshot – Additional footage courtesy of Mark Burry, RMIT University and the Arxiu de la Sagrada FamA-lia. Music, As I Figure by Kevin MacLeod, used under Creative Commons Attribution license.
VISUAL: Screenshot – RMIT University logo.
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