Fears for Barcelona cathedral when trains start to run

Fears for Barcelona cathedral when trains start to run

By Victoria Burnett
Published: May 9, 2007

BARCELONA: It has survived the death of its architect, a dearth of funding and the destruction of its prototypes during the Spanish civil war. Now the Cathedral of the Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudí's surreal, unfinished opus, faces a new threat: plans to bore a high-speed train tunnel within meters of its foundations.

"What would possess someone to build a tunnel like this next to the heaviest building in Barcelona, the most visited monument in Spain?" said Jordi Bonet, who leads a team of 20 architects working to complete the 125-year-old basilica.

In a workshop below the building, he paused next to a plaster model of the unbuilt facade and whipped out a yellow tape measure to show how the tunnel would pass just 1.5 meters, or 5 feet, from the cathedral's foundations. An energetic 81-year-old who has been responsible for the Sagrada Familia's construction for the past 22 years, Bonet said he feared the tunnel could cause irreversible damage.

"We are talking about a major assault on the Sagrada Familia," he said.

Bonet believes that the excavation of the tunnel, about 40 meters below ground, could cause the water-logged earth to subside under the weight of the vast building, whose facade will include four towers weighing 22,500 metric tons. The subsidence could cause cracks in the rippling exterior or the willowy 65-meter pillars that support the nave.

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"The subsoil here is made up of layers of clay and sand," Bonet said. "Our top geologist tells us it is like a sandwich spread with butter: The layers can slip just like that." He gestured with his palms to mimic plates of shifting earth.

He believes that plans to sink a protective wall between the cathedral foundations and the tunnel could aggravate the problem.

Once the train starts running, said Bonet, its vibrations could shake loose colored tiles embedded in the ceiling or fragments of bright Venetian glass that decorate the sculpted bell towers. Standing on a scaffold 65 meters above the nave, Bonet pointed to the shimmering mosaic pattern set in the ceiling.

"The tiniest crack could prompt stones to fall down, and from 65 meters, with people underneath, that would be dangerous," he said.

Since its fitful construction began in 1883, the Sagrada Familia, or Holy Family, has been gradually hemmed in by the creeping urbanization of Barcelona. The site is now flanked by two subway tunnels (which Bonet says, being shallow, cause minimal distress) and plans for a grand esplanade leading to the cathedral were foiled in the 1970s, when apartment blocks were built opposite the main entrance.

The cathedral, a Unesco World Heritage site, has been plagued by a lack of funds, and its construction halted for 16 years after an anticlerical mob set fire to Gaudí's workshop in 1936, destroying blueprints and breaking hundreds of plaster models. Bonet's father, Lluis, helped salvage the plaster models after the fire and went on to be one of Gaudí's successors on the project.

The tunnel will carry a high-speed train that will halve the five-hour journey between Barcelona and Madrid. Magdalena Álvarez, the development minister, said in a television interview Monday that she would be "very surprised" if the project - which could begin as early as next spring - was halted. Jordi Prat, the government official in charge of Catalan railroads, said that other routes under the city had been rejected because they involved digging directly beneath dozens of buildings. The engineers would test the project's impact continually, he said.

Bonet rejects such assurances, and charges that the government has not carried out adequate surveys and has ignored alternative routes, like one that would have taken the train around Barcelona's shoreline.

"This is badly designed project," he said. "They say: 'We will fix things as we go along.' You cannot do that. It's absolute recklessness."

Hundreds of local residents are also campaigning against the tunnel, which they fear will damage their homes and cause chaos - as did the collapse of a metro tunnel in Barcelona in 2005 - and academics from overseas have joined the chorus of protest.

"To consciously endanger a World Heritage site is an act of thoughtless vandalism," wrote J. Mark Schuster, professor of urban cultural policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in a letter to Bonet.

Despite the dangers posed by the tunnel, Bonet remains philosophical about the Sagrada Familia's future.

"Gaudí said that everything is providential," he shrugged. "This the Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family, and by expiatory we mean that everything is achieved through sacrifice and tribulation."

As for the cathedral's completion, the only thing Bonet is sure of is that he won't be around to see it. Computers have made work much faster and Bonet says technology is changing so fast that, for all he knows, they will use helicopters rather than cranes when it comes to building the central, 170-meter cross. Funding has picked up, and spending on the cathedral currently runs at about €1 million, or $1.35 million, per month.

"What is the point in worrying about whether it will take another 20, 30 years to finish?" he said as he skipped into the gloom of one of the cathedral's tight, spiral staircases. "Gaudí never saw it finished. Why should I?"

By Victoria Burnett
Published: May 9, 2007