Santa María del Mar

Santa María del Mar, Barcelona

This church, built in the 14th century in the Catalan Gothic style, is simple in style but strikingly beautiful. There must be something to the theory that geometric proportion is aesthetically pleasingly because this church was designed around units of eight, the numerical symbol for the Virgin Mary, and it is heart-achingly symmetrical.

the nave

The first impression is that the church is incredibly light and lofty inside for a church built in the Middle Ages. Some claim that the columns supporting the roof are the most slender of any Gothic church ever built. Where you notice this most is in the apse. I don’t know if the eight columns behind the altar are physically taller or more slender than the columns in the nave, or if it’s the light coming in from the windows there, or just an optical illusion, but certainly the eye is drawn upward toward heaven, as was intended by the architects.

I don’t ever remember being in a church with an open ambulatory – no walls, no screen, no closed doors behind the altar; the openess invites you to walk behind the altar and explore it from every angle. Now that’s my kind of church!