The Building That Inspires Me: Andrew Paulson
LA Managing Partner, Andrew Paulson
In our Journal series, we hear from LA London team members about a significant building or structure that has inspired and shaped their career in architecture. This month, Managing Partner Andrew Paulson discusses his experiences visiting Gaudi’s extraordinary Basilica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
Can you tell us about the building you have chosen?
I have chosen Antoni Gaudi’s Basilica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Perhaps this is “playing it safe”, given how well-known it is, but is a genuinely unique building that continues to inspire me every day.
Why is it so inspiring?
So many reasons, but above all of them is simply the way I feel when I enter it. All cathedrals are designed to inspire their occupants, from their scale to their materiality; their sheer height draws one’s eyes up to face the heavens and feel in the presence of God.
One of Andrew’s own shots.
Sagrada Familia takes this to another level. I have never felt as awestruck in a building as the last time I visited (as it neared completion). Despite my seven years of training as an Architect and 20+ years professional experience, I stood there, open-mouthed and lost for words. I found myself asking, “but how?”! How was so much stone so delicately suspended above my head as though it weighed nothing at all?!
As you stand in the nave facing the apse, the top of the “dome” over the apse is way out of sight, so high is it. But light floods down, illuminating a crucifix that is suspended over the altar. I am not at all religious and yet as I stood there I became lost in a moment of spirituality that I have never felt before.
I love the way the space dances with all the colours of the rainbow as sunlight passes through its vast windows of stained glass. Everything was planned and designed by Gaudi, nothing is an accident.
And like all other monumental cathedrals, the Sagrada Familia has taken over a century to build. Gaudi took it over in 1883 and it was only a quarter complete when he died. It is finally due to complete in 2026, the centenary of his death.
Religious or not, there is something other-worldly about how the Sagrada Familia makes you feel. Gaudi is known as “God’s Architect” and you can see why. Indeed, the catholic church is in the process of beatifying him.
“I love the way the space dances with all the colours of the rainbow as sunlight passes through its vast windows of stained glass. Everything was planned and designed by Gaudi, nothing is an accident.”
Completion is scheduled for 2026, the centenary of Gaudi’s death.
How did it influence your choice of career or your career path?
I was an architecture student when I first visited Sagrada Familia, so it didn’t directly influence my career path. But the impact it had on me nonetheless reinforced what a powerful effect architecture can have on its occupants. I was more certain than ever that I wanted to devote my career to architecture.
The view up from the central nave of Sagrada Familia.
How has it affected your approach to projects as Managing Partner at LA London?
“How could so much genius flow through one man, a humble architect, in a way that continues to blow minds 140 years later?”
Its duration has put our three- or four-year project programmes into perspective! But, no, I think it just acts as a constant reminder that anything is possible: with the a talented collaborative team, an enlightened client, a lot of money(!) and a sprinkle of genius, a piece of architecture can not only become a work of art but a truly spiritual experience.
Has your perception of this building changed during your time working as an architect?
My admiration for it has only grown. It helps that it has been under construction throughout my whole career, but each time I visit I appreciate another aspect of it that maybe hadn’t been evident (or even built!) when I was last there. And each time I still return to my original question: how? Just how? How could so much genius flow through one man, a humble architect, in a way that continues to blow minds 140 years later?
I can’t wait to return once it has completed next year.
Catch up with the first interview in this series, in which LA London Associate Miruna Stroe talks about T-House by Simon Ungers and Thomas Kinslow.
